45 Facts About Salah Abdeslam

Salah Abdeslam's family was of Moroccan origin but had acquired French nationality.

Salah Abdeslam worked for two years at the Brussels public transport company STIB-MIVB and then drifted into petty crime and unemployment.

From 2013 he helped his brother Brahim Salah Abdeslam, who was a suicide bomber in the Paris attacks, run a Molenbeek cafe-bar which was a centre for drug dealing and watching Islamic State videos.

Salah Abdeslam then called upon friends to collect him and take him back to Brussels, where he went into hiding.

On 15 March 2016, police raided a property in the Forest district of Brussels, where Salah Abdeslam was hiding with two other members of the terrorist cell.

Salah Abdeslam was arrested on 18 March 2016 in Molenbeek and extradited to France.

In Brussels in 2018, Salah Abdeslam was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his part in the Forest shootout.

Salah Abdeslam said he had not killed anyone and claimed he had decided not to detonate his explosives at the last minute.

Salah Abdeslam was born in the Brussels district of Molenbeek on 15 September 1989 to parents who came from Morocco and who had acquired French nationality after living in Algeria.

Salah Abdeslam and his three older brothers and younger sister were therefore born with French nationality.

Salah Abdeslam attended the Athenee Royal Serge Creuz secondary school in Molenbeek.

Salah Abdeslam was given a suspended sentence, but the months he had spent in prison on remand had cost him his job.

Salah Abdeslam then alternated temporary work with unemployment and, from 2013, helped his brother Brahim run his Molenbeek cafe-bar, Cafe Les Beguines, which was a centre for drug dealing and watching Islamic State videos.

Salah Abdeslam drank alcohol, used cannabis, and frequented nightclubs and casinos.

Salah Abdeslam acquired a further two convictions, one for theft and one for possession of cannabis.

At the beginning of August 2015, Salah Abdeslam made a very brief trip to Greece together with Ahmed Dahmani.

In October 2015, Salah Abdeslam purchased twelve remote detonators and a number of batteries from a fireworks shop in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumone in the northwestern suburbs of Paris.

Salah Abdeslam bought 15 litres of peroxide to use in the fabrication of explosives.

Salah Abdeslam rented two of the three cars used in the Paris attacks, a Volkswagen Polo and a Renault Clio, while his brother Brahim rented the third, a SEAT Leon.

Abaaoud, Chakib Akrouh and Brahim Salah Abdeslam drove through the 10th and 11th arrondissements of Paris, stopping at three junctions to open fire upon people on cafe and restaurant terraces, killing 39 people.

Brahim Salah Abdeslam then detonated a suicide vest in a cafe in the 11th arrondissement.

At about 10 pm Salah Abdeslam parked his car in the Place Albert Kahn in the 18th arrondissement, leaving a kitchen knife in it.

Salah Abdeslam took the metro or a taxi to Chatillon in the southwest of Paris, where he abandoned his suicide vest amongst some rubbish and bought a McDonald's takeaway.

Salah Abdeslam then spent a couple of hours with two youths in the stairwell of a block of flats.

Once back in Brussels, Salah Abdeslam bought new clothes and a phone and visited a barber to change his appearance.

In spite of being the focus of a huge manhunt, Salah Abdeslam managed to evade capture for four months.

Salah Abdeslam initially co-operated with investigators when questioned about his role in the Paris attacks on the day after his arrest and admitted to having rented hotel rooms and cars and driven three bombers to the Stade de France.

Salah Abdeslam was placed under formal investigation for murder and attempted murder of a terrorist nature and transferred to Fleury-Merogis Prison to the south of Paris.

Salah Abdeslam was represented by Belgian lawyer Sven Mary and French lawyer Frank Berton.

Nineteen men were on trial alongside Salah Abdeslam, including six being tried in their absence.

The thirteen defendants in court with Salah Abdeslam included Abrini, Ayari, Amri, Attou and Oulkadi.

Salah Abdeslam was defended by two French lawyers, Olivia Ronen and Martin Vettes.

Salah Abdeslam went on to complain about the conditions in Fleury-Merogis Prison, where he was kept in solitary confinement with 24 hour camera surveillance.

Salah Abdeslam claimed that the attacks were retaliation against France for bombing the Islamic State and "nothing personal", words which shocked the survivors and victims' relatives listening in court.

Salah Abdeslam told the court that he had entered a bar in the 18th arrondissement of Paris with the intention of detonating his suicide vest but changed his mind at the last moment "out of humanity, not fear".

Salah Abdeslam ended by offering his apologies to the victims.

The prosecution asked for a full-life term of imprisonment for Salah Abdeslam, arguing that his reintegration into society would be impossible given his ideology.

Salah Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and terrorism and sentenced to a full-life term of imprisonment, meaning that he will only have a small chance of parole after thirty years.

Ayari, who had been arrested with Salah Abdeslam, was sentenced to thirty years in prison for planning an attack on Schiphol Airport that was not carried out.

Salah Abdeslam's lawyers disagreed with his decision not to appeal and declined to represent him in his forthcoming trial in Brussels; their place was taken by Belgian lawyers Delphine Paci, who had defended Attou in the Paris trial, and Michel Bouchat.

On 12 August 2019, Salah Abdeslam had been formally charged with involvement in the Brussels bombings.

Verdicts were delivered on 25 July 2023, with Salah Abdeslam convicted of terrorist-related murder and attempted murder.

Salah Abdeslam did not however receive a sentence, as he had already been sentenced to twenty years in prison for the Forest shoot-out.

Salah Abdeslam's lawyers argued that his whole-life sentence was "inhuman and degrading" and all his relatives were in Belgium: therefore the transfer would breach his human rights.

On 7 February 2024, Salah Abdeslam was transferred back to France, as the Belgian prosecutor's office argued that the judicial agreement with France to return him after the trial took precedence over the appeal court's suspension of the transfer.