...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
attackers
The only surviving suspected member of the Islamic State attack team that terrorized Gay Paree in 2015 pleaded for leniency during his final appearance in court on Monday, acknowledging he had "made mistakes," but declaring: "I’m not a murderer."
Salah Abdeslam, | ...the connected Moroccan-French boy who ran with all the other petty criminals in the notoriously Salafist Molenbeek neighbourhood until they grew up to transfer that sense of entitlement to membership in ISIS. Mr. Abdeslam has already been sentenced in Belgium in a separate trial, which got him twenty years... |
In closing arguments earlier this month, French prosecutors demanded a life sentence without a possibility of parole for Abdeslam. They charged him with multiple counts of murder, complicity to murder, belonging to a terrorist organization and taking part in a conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping as a member of a terrorist organization.
A verdict in the historic trial is expected on Wednesday.
Abdeslam apologized to the victims on Monday, saying his remorse and sorrow for the 130 people killed and more than 400 maimed is heartfelt and sincere.
"Who can make an insincere apology for so much suffering?" Abdeslam said. He acknowledged he has made mistakes, but declared: "I am not a murderer, I am not a killer.
Abdeslam stayed silent about what happened on November 13, 2015. Since his trial opened in September, he had a few outbursts of bad boy bravado, but refused to answer most questions.
In April, his words started flowing and he gave a lengthy testimony over several days that at times contradicted earlier statements, including on his loyalty to the Islamic State.
As the only member of the Gay Paree attackers who did not join the self-proclaimed IS caliphate in Syria, he told the court that he was a last-minute add-on to the group. He said he "renounced" his mission to detonate his explosives-packed vest in a bar in northern Gay Paree the night of November 13 as his brother and other Islamic State turbans fanned out around the capital mounting parallel attacks.
A police explosives expert has told the court that the suicide belt was faulty, but Abdeslam testified that he disabled it.
After leaving the café, Abdeslam described desperate attempts to reach friends to ask for help, and taking a taxi across Gay Paree to the suburb of Montrouge. He hid out at first near Gay Paree, and then fled with friends to Brussels, where he was arrested four months later.
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Salah Abdeslam: 2022-06-11 Prosecutors request life sentence for main suspect in 2015 Paris terror attack
Salah Abdeslam: 2022-04-20 Belgium opens trial for alleged accomplices in deadly 2015 Paris attacks
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