Salah Abdeslam, sentenced to life in prison for the 2015 Paris attacks, was extradited from Belgium to France on Wednesday, a move his lawyer said was a “clear violation of the rule of law”. Ta.
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Abdeslam is the only survivor of the Islamic State group, which killed 130 people in the French capital in November 2015.
The 34-year-old has been detained in Belgium since his trial for the 2016 attack in Brussels, for which he was also found guilty in September.
French Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said: “Sarah Adbeslam has just been taken to a prison in the Paris region.”
“In accordance with the decisions of the French judicial system and the wishes of victims’ organizations, he will there serve a non-reducible life sentence.”
Hidden for months
After Abdeslam fled to Brussels after the Paris attacks, he hid out for four months in an apartment occupied by members of a local jihadist cell.
He was arrested days before the suicide bombings that killed 32 people and injured hundreds at Brussels airport and metro station in March 2016.
A Belgian jury found him to be one of the co-planners of these attacks.
His extradition to France had been blocked by a Brussels court over concerns that it would violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
“They came to put Mr. Abdeslam in solitary confinement at 9 a.m. this morning… in violation of the court’s decision… between the Belgian and French states,” Abdeslam’s lawyer Delphine Paci told Agence France-Presse AFP on Wednesday. There was clearly collusion.”
Abdeslam’s lawyers argued he should be allowed to serve his sentence in Belgium, where he grew up and has family ties despite his French citizenship.
“This is clearly about some kind of thirst for revenge that took precedence over the rule of law,” Pasi said.
(AFP News)