Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving terrorist from the 2015 Paris attacks, returned to France from a Belgian prison on Wednesday, according to lawyer Delphine Paci.
The court delayed his return, citing human rights concerns.
Why was Abdeslam in Belgium?
He was to be extradited to Belgium in 2022 to stand trial there, on the condition that he return to France.
Mr Abdeslam had fled to Brussels in November 2015 after taking part in attacks on the Bataclan nightclub, restaurants and bars and the Stade de France rugby and football stadium in Paris. The attack, claimed by the so-called Islamic State (IS), killed 130 people and injured hundreds more.
He barricaded himself in an apartment occupied by members of a local IS cell for four months and was arrested days before the suicide bombings that killed 32 people at Brussels’ airport and metro station in March 2016.
Mr. Abdeslam was tried in 2022 for the Paris terrorist attacks, was found guilty of terrorism and murder, and was sentenced to life in prison. He spent most of his time in detention in France.
A Belgian jury found him to be one of the co-planners of the Brussels attacks, for which he was also convicted.
Why wasn’t he returned sooner?
Abdeslam was scheduled to serve the remainder of his sentence in France immediately after his trial in Brussels concluded last July.
However, a court blocked the transfer due to concerns that it could violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
His lawyers argued that his life sentence was “inhuman and degrading” and that although he had French nationality, all of his relatives were in Belgium.
Abdeslam will serve a life sentence in a French prison, a sentence that does not exist in Belgium.
His lawyer described the transfer as a “serious violation of the rule of law.”
“There was clear collusion between the Belgian state and the French state to violate the court’s decision.”
“This is about a kind of thirst for revenge that clearly takes precedence over the rule of law,” Pasi argued.
rc/msh (AFP, EFE)