Surviving Paris ISIL Terrorism

"I hope to be able to put the word 'victim' into the past."

"When things like this happen you have no repair possible. That's why you have justice, [even if] justice can't do everything."

"It puts an exclamation point at the end of it."

Arthur Dénouveaux, Bataclan massacre survivor

"The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people,"

"[Hearing the testimony of victims was] crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation."

"It wasn't a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations."

Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death at one of the cafes

Families of victims, journalists and lawyers attend the courthouse where the trial took place under heightened security on Wednesday. (Abdulmonam Eassa/Getty Images)

 Salah Abdeslam, chief suspect and the sole survivor among the 2015 terrorist attackers who massacred 130 people -- claiming their massacre was due to the influence of the Islamic State group -- has now been convicted of murder. His sentence was the most severe possible under French law; life in prison without possibility of parole. He denied being a murderer and pleaded forgiveness for his error in judgement.

A special terrorist court had been convened to try the case of the terrorist attack against the Bataclan theatre and a number of other attacks at cafes and a sport stadium in a coordinated night of terror and death in Paris. Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder related to a terrorist enterprise. While he had contended a change of mind led him to abandon his explosives vest, in fact the court heard, it was a malfunction in the explosives vest that kept him from detonating it and slaughtering even greater numbers.

 

A courtroom sketch shows Abdeslam as the verdict was read at the courthouse on the Île de la Cité in Paris on Wednesday. (Elisabeth de Pourquery/France Televisions/Reuters)

 

A special French court Wednesday also found twenty men to be guilty of involvement in the Bataclan attack as well as on Paris cafes and France's national stadium. Presiding Judge Jean-Louis Peries read the verdicts surrounded by tight security, to close out the nine-month trial. Eighteen defendants aside from Abdeslam were given terrorist-related convictions.

Harrowing victim accounts were heard in the packed main chamber of the 13th Century Justice Palace aside from the testimony of Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the ten-member attack team that gave Paris a Friday night that would forever haunt the city. There were a dozen overflow rooms and they were fully packed. Of the other defendants six were accused of a direct role in the Mach 2015 attacks in Brussels, claimed as well by the Islamic State group.

 

A court sketch shows Salah Abdeslam standing (far R) alongside the other 13 defendants in court this week   Benoit PEYRUCQ/AFP

 

The remainder of the defendants faced accusations of assisting with logistics or transportation. The most conspicuous change related to that fateful day in March 2015 is armed officers patrolling public spaces constantly. Most of the attackers were born and raised in France and Belgium, which led to soul-searching by authorities while at the same time the lives of those who suffered losses or bore witness were forever transformed. Of the ten-member attacking team, six are presumed to have been killed in Syria or Iraq.

A French police officer stands guard in front of the Bataclan concert venue during a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the deadly terror attacks in Paris, on Nov. 13, 2020. Chief suspect Salah Abdeslam was convicted Wednesday of murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)