Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of a 10-person Islamic State extremist group that killed 130 people in a string of attacks on Paris in 2015, has been found guilty of all charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole, multiple outlets reported Wednesday.
Nineteen others were also found guilty of involvement in the incident, which targeted the Bataclan music hall, six cafes, and the Stade de France sports stadium, and constitutes the deadliest peacetime assault in French history, CNBC writes. Of the 19, 18 were found guilty of all charges against them, "which included being accomplices to murder and hostage-taking," while one was convicted on a lesser charge, notes The New York Times. The Wednesday sentences can be appealed.
The trial, which took place over a record ten months, saw testimony from hundreds of individuals, including the president of France at the time of the attacks, François Hollande. Only 14 of the 20 defendants appeared in court, "with the other six missing or presumed dead," the Times writes.
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Arthur Denouveaux, who survived the Bataclan attack, told Reuters that the ruling "will help us."
"When things like that happen, you can't have reparation but you can have justice," Denouveaux said. "It was justice for sure, but it's not healing everything."
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