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Guilty verdicts for 19 accused over November 2015 Paris attacks

At the end of the longest-ever trial in French legal history, a jury of magistrates on Wednesday found Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of an Islamic State group cell which murdered 130 people in a series of shooting and suicide bomb attacks in Paris in November 2015, guilty of terrorism and murder as charged, and pronounced guilty verdicts on 18 others charged with various degrees of complicity in the killings.   

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

A French court on Wednesday evening  began handing down verdicts against 20 men accused of involvement in the 2015 Paris attacks which saw 130 people killed, reports BBC News.

The only survivor of the group behind the November 2015 Paris attacks has been found guilty of terrorism and murder charges.

Salah Abdeslam was seen as a key suspect and participant in the gun and bomb attacks that killed 130 people.

There were guilty verdicts for all but one of the 20 men put on trial for their involvement.

Sentences will be announced later - prosecutors had requested Abdeslam receive a rare full-life prison term.

The trial is the biggest in modern French history and began last September.

Abdeslam told the court this week that he was "not a murderer, or a killer" and that to convict him of that would be "an injustice".

The trial - the biggest in modern French history - began last September.

For more than nine months, victims, journalists, and the families of the dead have lined up outside the specially-built courtroom in Paris to piece together the story of the worst attack in France since World War Two.

The combination of gun and bomb attacks across bars, restaurants, the national football stadium and Bataclan music venue on November 13th 2015 saw hundreds injured alongside those killed.

Testimony during the trial has at times been harrowing, such as the playing of audio recordings from inside the Bataclan.

One victim heard his own exchange with the gunman taking him hostage. He said having the court hear it with him was "the most healing thing".

But the testimony has also often been dense, detailed - and confusing.

The explanations of Salah Abdeslam, now 32, were sometimes contradictory and difficult to follow.

He is accused of being part of a 10-man squad of heavily-armed jihadists who launched the attack, before discarding his suicide belt and fleeing back to his home in Brussels where many of his co-accused lived.

Prosecutors requested a full-life term for Salah Abdeslam, the most severe penalty for criminals that can be imposed under French law, with only a small chance of parole after 30 years.

It has only been handed down four times since 1994.

Read more of this report from BBC News.