End point of an extraordinary trial. The special assize court of Paris pronounced on Wednesday against the twenty defendants of the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015 sentences of two years of life imprisonment, including an extremely rare life sentence incompressible against the main of them, Salah Abdeslam.
>> Trial of the November 13 attacks: what is the incompressible life sentence required against Salah Abdeslam?
The 32-year-old Frenchman, the only surviving member of the commandos that killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis, was sentenced to incompressible life imprisonment. “Faced with acts that go beyond anything we can imagine, we must respond with justice, with the law, and that is exactly what this trial has demonstrated.“, declared Jean-François Ricard, public prosecutor against terrorism, this Thursday on franceinfo, the day after the verdict in the trial of the attacks of November 13. Concerning Salah Abdeslam, sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment, “the punishment is just“, he estimated on franceinfo.
LIVE – The trial of the November 13 attacks is over ➡️ “It’s the victory of the rule of law”, reacts Jean-François Ricard, director of the national anti-terrorist prosecution. “When S. Abdeslam deposits 3 human bombs, he kill by proxy. The punishment is just.” pic.twitter.com/ieQTvBuD5Z
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) June 30, 2022
The court followed the requisitions of the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office which had demanded this extremely rare sanction which makes any possibility of release minimal. It had so far only been pronounced four times. In fact, this sentence, also called “real life”, was recently introduced into French law, in 1994.
Thus, before this verdict, only four trials had concluded with these very heavy sentences, thus showing to what extent popular juries hesitate before pronouncing this maximum sentence.
Chronologically, Pierre Bodein, known as “Pierrot le fou”, tried in 2007, in particular for three murders, two rapes and two kidnappings, including those of a 10-year-old child, was the first to be sentenced to this incompressible sentence. Then comes Michel Fourniret, the serial killer, second sentenced in history to this sentence, in 2008, for the murders of seven women. He died in prison in 2020.
Finally, Nicolas Blondiau and Yannick Louendé Botelo, convicted in 2013 and 2016 for each time murdering children: lOcéane, aged 8, in 2011 and Marion, 14, in Bouguenais, near Nantes, in 2012 .
Theoretically it is life imprisonment, with no hope of getting out. But in France, the principle is that any prisoner must keep a hope of getting out of prison one day, even if he is thin. This is also guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
In practice, the Penal Code therefore provides that after thirty years in prison, the convicted person may request a review of the sentence which could be granted to him on an exceptional basis by a sentence enforcement judge.
But unlike other detainees, those sentenced to real life must, in addition, be received by experts who assess their degree of dangerousness, before five magistrates of the Court of Cassation decide whether or not to put an end to the incompressible character. of their pain.