Twenty men have been found guilty of involvement in the 2015 terrorist attacks in France on the Bataclan theatre, Paris cafes and national stadium that killed 130 people. Salah Abdeslam, the lone surviving attacker from the atrocities, has been convicted of terrorist murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Presiding judge Jean-Louis Peries read the verdicts in a courthouse surrounded by unprecedented security, wrapping up a nine-month trial. Of the defendants besides Abdeslam, 18 were handed various terrorism-related convictions, and one was convicted on a lesser fraud charge.
Among the victims of the deadliest peacetime attacks in French history - carried out by the so-called Islamic State group - was Briton Nick Alexander, 35, of Weeley, near Colchester. Mr Alexander died at the Bataclan concert hall, where he was selling merchandise for the band Eagles Of Death Metal.
In closing arguments, prosecutors stressed that all 20 defendants, who had fanned out around the French capital armed with semi-automatic rifles and explosives-packed vests to mount parallel attacks, are members of the extremist group. “Not everyone is a jihadi, but all of those you are judging accepted to take part in a terrorist group, either by conviction, cowardliness or greed,” prosecutor Nicolas Braconnay told the court this month.
Some defendants, including Abdeslam, said innocent civilians were targeted because of France’s policies in the Middle East and hundreds of civilian deaths in Western airstrikes in so-called Islamic State-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq. But during his evidence, former President François Hollande dismissed claims that his government was at fault.
The Islamic State, “this pseudo-state, declared war with the weapons of war”, Mr Hollande said. The Paris attackers did not terrorise, shoot, kill, maim and traumatise civilians because of religion, he said, adding it was “fanaticism and barbarism”.
Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death in one of the cafes, spoke at the start of the trial in September 2021. She said: "The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people. It wasn’t a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations."
Over the course of the nine-month trial, Abdeslam proclaimed his radicalism, wept, apologised to victims and pleaded with judges to forgive his “mistakes”. The other defendants are largely accused of helping with logistics or transportation, while at least one is accused of a direct role in the deadly March 2016 attacks in Brussels, which also was claimed by the Islamic State group.
Presiding judge Jean-Louis Peries said at the trial’s outset that it belongs to “international and national events of this century”. Fourteen of the defendants have been in court, including Abdeslam, the only survivor of the 10-member attacking team; all but one of the six absent men are presumed to have been killed in Syria or Iraq - the other is in prison in Turkey.
Most of the suspects are accused of helping create false identities, transporting the attackers back to Europe from Syria or providing them with money, phones, explosives or weapons. Abdeslam, a 32-year-old Belgian with Moroccan roots, was the only defendant tried on several counts of murder and kidnapping as a member of a terrorist organisation.
Abdeslam's sentence of life in prison without parole has only been pronounced four times in France — for crimes related to rape and murder of minors. The remaining suspects were tried on lesser terrorism charges and face sentences ranging from five to 30 years.
