Salah Abdeslam Wiki
Salah Abdeslam Biography
Who is Salah Abdeslam?
Salah Abdeslam, 32, faces multiple life sentences on charges including murder, attempted murder and hostage taking.
But the French Moroccan citizen said Wednesday that he had deliberately withdrawn from the November 2015 rampage in which other terrorists, including his brother, were blown to pieces.
Career
Abdeslam added: “In the future, when someone gets on a subway train or a bus with a suitcase full of 50 kilograms of explosives, and at the last minute decides ‘I’m not going to do this,’ they know they can.” t, because otherwise he will be locked up or killed.’
In the past, Abdeslam has described himself as an “Islamic State soldier” and part of the “commando unit” that attacked the Stade de France national sports stadium, six restaurants and bars, and the Bataclan variety theater.
He is now one of 20 defendants facing various charges related to the attacks, in a mammoth trial, the largest in French history, that began in September.
Prosecutors allege that Abdeslam’s explosive vest did not work and that he then fled the French capital in the hours after the Friday the 13th attack.
In court today, Abdeslam denied ever going abroad from his home in Belgium to fight or train with ISIS.
He admitted to being a “member of the Islamic State” and added: “I support ISIS, I am with them, I love them.”
But he said that “initially he was not motivated by religion” but that he wanted to oppose Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad.
Suspects
Fourteen suspects are in the dock in Paris, and another six are being tried in absentia, five of them presumed dead in Iraq or Syria and the last in prison in Turkey.
Abdeslam is alleged to have been central to the international logistics operation that underpinned the ISIS attack.
He is believed to have escorted the three attackers who blew themselves up at the Stade de France in Paris.
The car, left, carrying Abdeslam arrived at the Palais de Justice in Paris on Wednesday, as the mammoth trial began.
Days after his arrest in March 2016 following a four-month manhunt that ended in a shooting in Brussels, suicide bombers believed to be part of the same cell attacked Brussels airport and the city’s metro, killing 32 and injuring hundreds.
Abdeslam has already been sentenced in Brussels to 20 years in prison for the shooting that accompanied his arrest.
Also on trial is Mohamed Abrini, a 36-year-old childhood friend of Abdeslam, who is believed to have traveled to the Paris region with the attackers.
Abrini was later caught on CCTV with the two Brussels airport attackers.
The Paris trial continues and is expected to conclude this summer.
