Justice
Salah Abdeslam was taken from his Belgian cell on Wednesday morning to be transferred to France. His lawyer reported this to various media, the news is confirmed by the public prosecutor’s office.
“An agreement had been reached between the judicial authorities of France and Belgium to loan Salah Abdeslam for the duration of the trial and a possible appeal to the Court of Cassation,” said Eric Van der Sypt, spokesman for the federal public prosecutor’s office. “If we were to wait any longer, we risk running out of title to keep him in prison any longer and we obviously want to avoid that.”
However, in October, Abdeslam’s lawyers obtained in summary proceedings before the judge that he could provisionally serve his sentence in Belgium, close to his family. France had appealed against that ruling and the French-speaking court of first instance was due to hear the case on February 12.
According to the federal public prosecutor’s office, the judicial agreement between France and Belgium takes precedence over ongoing civil proceedings. Therefore, according to Van der Sypt, the public prosecutor’s office is not bound by the decision of the judge in summary proceedings who stated that Abdeslam was not allowed to return as long as the French-speaking court of first instance in Brussels had not ruled on the merits.
Delivery period can no longer be extended
The agreement between France and Belgium “does not provide for the stay of Salah Abdeslam in Belgium in the context of other civil proceedings,” said a press release from the federal public prosecutor’s office. “Salah Abdeslam’s return to France at the end of the criminal proceedings was therefore legally irrevocable.”
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the extradition period could no longer be extended. It also states that French authorities had rejected Salah Abdeslam’s request to serve his French sentence in Belgium and that Abdeslam did not pursue all legal remedies available to him in France.
Van der Sypt concludes that the public prosecutor’s office has examined the case “thoroughly from a legal perspective” and that there is also case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union that endorses his position.
Abdeslam was sentenced by the special court of assizes in Paris to an indefinite life sentence, with a ‘perpetual’ security period of actually thirty years, for the attacks of November 13, 2015. The popular jury of the court of assizes in Brussels declared him guilty last year of the attacks of March 22, 2016. But the sentence took into account the sentence he already received in Paris, and only referred to the twenty years in prison he received for the shooting in Vorst.
