He received the heaviest sentence provided for by the Penal Code in France. Main accused and only member still alive of the commandos of November 13, Salah Abdeslam was sentenced Wednesday, June 29 to life imprisonment, as required by the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat). This rare sanction makes the possibility of obtaining a sentence adjustment, and therefore a release, very small.
During the requisitions, the general attorneys had considered that the accused had been a key player, “stayed true to his ideology to the end” radical and incapable Islamist “to express any remorse”. The special assize court in Paris found him guilty of being “co-author” of one “single crime scene”. Salah Abdeslam is thus condemned to life imprisonment for the only attempted murders on the police officers intervened during the attack on the Bataclan. Franceinfo goes into detail on what this condemnation means.
At least thirty years behind bars
Incompressible life imprisonment – or more precisely a life sentence accompanied by an incompressible security period – is the most severe penalty existing in French law. The Penal Code provides that for certain particularly serious crimes, this period of security, during which the convicted person cannot benefit from any adjustment of sentence, is unlimited in time.
In fact, the law provides that for thirty years, the detainee cannot ask for leave, parole, suspension or splitting of sentence, placement on the outside or semi-freedom.
At the end of this period of thirty years of detention, the irreducible life sentence (or “real life”) can however be called into question, but under very strict conditions. The convict can ask the sentence enforcement court to put an end to the period of “real life”. This can open the way, then, to an adjustment of sentence.
This court can only put an end to the “real perpetuity” after consulting a commission composed of five judges of the Court of Cassation responsible for determining whether it is necessary to put an end to the application of the decision of the assize court. To win the case, the convict must demonstrate serious guarantees of social rehabilitation. The court also ensures that its decision is not likely to cause a serious disturbance to public order and gathers the opinion of the victims beforehand. He decides after the expertise of a college of three medical experts who assess the state of dangerousness of the condemned person.
A sanction reserved for the most serious crimes
When it was introduced into French law in 1994, under the aegis of the Minister of Justice Pierre Méhaignerie, this penalty was intended only for the most serious crimes: murder with rape or torture of a minor under 15 years and the murders committed by an organized gang.
In 2011, a first extension of the law took place, opening the possibility of pronouncing an incompressible life sentence during the assassination of a person holding public authority (policeman, magistrate, etc.), on the occasion or in because of his duties. Following the attacks that took place in November 2015 and left 131 dead and 413 injured in Paris and Saint-Denis, the law of June 3, 2016 widened the possibility of imposing an irreducible life sentence on the perpetrators of terrorist crimes.
Four criminals sentenced since its establishment
Salah Abdeslam, currently 32, is the fifth criminal in French criminal history to receive this sentence.
In 2007, Pierre Bodein was the first to be sentenced to this sentence. The serial killer, known as “Pierrot le fou”, had been convicted of three murders, two rapes and two kidnappings. Since then, life imprisonment has only been pronounced for three other criminals. In 2008, Michel Fourniret – who died in May 2021 – was sentenced to this sentence for the murders of seven young women or adolescent girls between 1987 and 2001.
Five years later, Nicolas Blondiau inherited a similar sentence for the rape and murder of little Océane, aged 8, in 2011. Finally, this “real life” was applied in 2016 to Yannick Luende Bothelo, sentenced for the rape and murder of Marion, 14, in Bouguenais, near Nantes.