Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the only surviving member of the group that carried out the deadliest terror attack ever seen in peacetime France, has been sentenced to life in prison at the Criminal Court in Paris.
He was found guilty along with 19 other defendants of helping to organize the attacks carried out on November 13, 2015, in which 130 people were killed at the Bataclan club in Paris, six bars and restaurants and at the France Stadium.
The trial, which was held in a specially designed courtroom in the Paris Palace of Justice, lasted nine months and involved over two thousand plaintiffs and more than 300 lawyers, reports Reuters.
Responsibility for the attacks in which hundreds of people were injured was claimed by the Islamic State (IS), which called on its followers to attack France because of its involvement in the fight against IS in Iraq and Syria.
Abdeslam was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a sentence handed down only four times before in France.
Abdeslam, a 32-year-old Frenchman born in Belgium, proudly declared at the start of the trial that he was a "soldier of the Islamic State", which claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The accused said during the trial that at the last moment it was decided not to detonate his vest with explosives, but based on the results of the investigation and hearing witnesses, the court decided otherwise.
"The court finds that the explosive vest was defective, and Abdeslam is guilty as an active member of a terrorist network," said chief judge Jean-Louis Perry.
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