Police patrol outside the Brussels justice palace during the trial of Salah Abdeslam

Police patrol outside the Brussels justice palace during the trial of Salah Abdeslam

A BELGIAN COURT has sentenced the sole surviving suspect in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, to 20 years in prison on terror charges over a bloody gun battle with police in Brussels days before his capture in 2016. Prosecutors asked at the trial in February for Abdeslam and his co-defendant Sofiane Ayari to be jailed for up to 20 years if found guilty on charges of terrorist-related attempted murder and possession of banned weapons. Months earlier, Abdeslam had become the subject of a manhunt as the only known survivor of the Islamic State terror cell that carried out the suicide bombings and mass shootings on Nov. 13, 2015, that killed at least 130 people — many of them at the Bataclan concert hall. Abdeslam was involved in a confrontation with police in the Forest suburb of Brussels in March 2016, four months after the attacks on a Paris concert hall and restaurants left 130 people dead. The sole surviving suspect in the 2015 Paris extremist attacks, who was once Europe's most wanted fugitive, will not be in court to hear his judgment in an attempted murder case on Monday. Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national, fled the scene but was arrested three days later in the largely immigrant Molenbeek area of the Belgian capital, near his family home. The network was involved in both the Paris attacks and bombings that struck the Brussels metro and airport on 22 March 2016, just days after Abdeslam's arrest, killing 32 people. He said Abdeslam would likely have to serve the full Belgian 20-year term on top of any sentence that arises from the French trial over the Paris attacks. The conclusion of the case at Brussels' ornate palace of justice is taking place amid intense security set up by the armed forces and police, even though Abdeslam remains in prison in northern France. After declaring on the first day of proceedings that the court was biased against Muslims and he would only “trust in Allah,” Abdeslam refused to attend the rest of the trial.
Suspect Salah Abdeslam and a co-defendant are convicted of attempting to murder police officers and terror offences in Belgium, with each receiving a 20-year sentence. Abdeslam is being held in France awaiting trial for the 2015 attacks.