Salah Abdeslam, who was sentenced to life in prison for the 2015 Paris jihadist attacks, was released from his cell in Belgium on Wednesday and transferred to France.
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Abdeslam is the only survivor of the Islamic State group that carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in France’s history, killing 130 people in the French capital in November 2015.
He was convicted in Belgium last year of planning a subsequent attack in Brussels in 2016, but his extradition to continue his prison sentence in France was blocked by the Court of Appeal on human rights grounds.
Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office confirmed the transfer, which was first announced by Abdeslam’s lawyer, saying Abdeslam was taken from a prison in Brussels to the border and handed over to French authorities.
After the Paris attacks, Abdeslam fled to Brussels and was arrested in March 2016, days before suicide bombings that killed 32 people and injured hundreds at Brussels airport and metro station.
Both massacres were part of a series of attacks in Europe claimed by the Islamic State group.
Since 2016, Abdeslam has mainly been detained in France, but his lawyers say he should be allowed to serve his sentence in Belgium, where he grew up and has family ties despite having French nationality. was making a point.
The Brussels Court of Appeal blocked his extradition to France, citing concerns that it would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and the protection of the right to “family life.”
“Legally irrevocable”
Mr Abdeslam’s lawyer, Delfin Paci, denounced the transfer as a “grave violation of the rule of law”.
“There was clearly collusion between the Belgian state and the French state in violation of the court’s decision,” she said. “This is clearly about some kind of thirst for revenge that takes precedence over the rule of law.”
However, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it had no problem with Abdeslam’s eventual deportation.
“Salah Abdeslam’s return to France after the conclusion of the criminal proceedings was legally irrevocable,” the newspaper said.
Prosecutors argued that Belgium’s legal agreement to transfer him to France overrides the Brussels Court of Appeal’s civil judgment.
It further argued that Belgium may no longer have legal grounds to continue detaining him.
Although Abdeslam was convicted of the Brussels attacks, the court did not give him any additional time because he had already been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium for the shootout in 2018.
“Releasing him clearly was not an option,” the statement said.
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(AFP)