Paris attacker found guilty

Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving attacker from the November 2015 Paris attacks has been found guilty of terrorism and murder charges after an historic trial.

Salah Abdeslam received a full-life sentence for his role in the terror attacks that killed 130 people. Another 19 men involved, six of whom are believed to be dead, were also convicted for their roles in the gun and bomb attacks.

The trial began in September 2021 and was the biggest in modern French history. A court room in Paris was specially built for the trial of the worst attack in France since the Second World War.

The attacks on 13 November 2015 took place in bars, restaurants, near the national football stadium and at the Bataclan music venue. 130 people were killed and hundreds injured.

At the beginning of the trial, Abdeslam had described himself as a soldier of the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, but he later apologised to the victims. In his closing remarks to the court he said that he was "not a murderer, or a killer", and that to convict him of murder would be "an injustice".

During the trial, Abdeslam claimed that during the attack, he had decided not to detonate his suicide vest and put it in the bin. However the court saw evidence that the suicide vest was faulty and they did not believe that he had changed his mind.

His full-life sentence is the most severe penalty in French courts and his rarely handed down to criminals. It means there is only a small chance of parole after 30 years.

Édith Seurat, a survivor of the attack told the BBC that the trial had not healed her pain and had left her unsatisfied. She said: "We still have our injuries and our traumas and our nightmares and our wounds. We still have to keep on living with that."

Others convicted during the trial include Mohamed Abrini, who admitted driving the attackers to Paris and was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 22 years; Mohammed Bakkali, who was accused of renting hideouts in Brussels for the attacker and was sentence to 30 years in prison; Osama Krayem and Sofien Ayari, who were convicted of planning an attack on Amsterdam airport as part of the same cell and were each sentenced to 30 years in prison; and Muhammad Usman and Adel Haddadi who were each sentenced to 18 years in prison. Six other defendants who are believed to have died in the attacks were tried in their absence.

Elsewhere, a Belgian court is set to deliver verdicts in the trial of 14 people accused of providing material to help the Paris attackers. This includes Abdeslam's cousin Abid Aberkane, who is accused of hiding the attacker at his mother's house before his arrest in 2016. Aberkane apologised to the court last month, saying he had been brainwashed by IS videos.

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