Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslam jailed in Belgium

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Belgian/French police

Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving suspect from the 2015 Paris attacks, has been jailed for 20 years in Belgium over a gunfight that led to his arrest.

Abdeslam, 28, and co-defendant Sofien Ayari were both convicted of terror-related charges of attempted murder.

Ayari, 24, was also given a 20-year sentence. Both fired on officers who raided a flat in Brussels in 2016.

He is being held in a jail in France and is due to face trial there over the Paris attacks themselves.

• Five things about Salah Abdeslam
• Who were the Paris attackers?
• Paris attacks: What happened on the night

He had refused to answer questions from the judge in the trial in Brussels, and eventually refused to attend the hearings.

Neither he nor Ayari, 24, was in court as the verdict was read out on Monday. Both received the maximum 20-year term requested by prosecutors.

The judge, Marie France Keutgen, said that “there can be no doubt” about the two men’s involvement with “radicalism”.

She added: “Their intention is clear from the nature of the weapons they used, the number of bullets they fired and the nature of the police officers’ wounds. Only the officers’ professional response prevented it being worse.”

What happened during the shootout and its aftermath?

On 15 March 2016, Belgian police hunting Abdeslam carried out a raid in the Forest area of Brussels.

They targeted a flat believing that the suspect – who by then had been on the run for four months – had been there.

When they moved in they exchanged fire with the three occupants. One of the three was killed and three officers were wounded.

Abdeslam and Ayari managed to escape, but Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found in the flat, confirming his presence there.

He was picked up days later in a raid in the nearby Molenbeek area, and later transferred to France.

• Is Molenbeek a hotbed of extremism?

What do we know about Abdeslam?

He was born in Brussels from Moroccan parents who also had French nationality. This allowed him to become French himself.

He was involved in petty crime in Belgium as a youth, and is believed to have become radicalised along with his brother Salim around 2014.

Both then reportedly joined a French-Belgian network linked with the Islamic State group (IS), which later claimed the Paris attacks.

The network was involved in both the Paris attacks and bombings that struck the Brussels metro and airport on 22 March 2016, just days after Abdeslam’s arrest, killing 35 people.

In Monday’s ruling, the court denied a request by victims from those attacks that they be regarded as a civil party to the case, saying no link had been established with Abdeslam and Ayari.

How has Abdeslam been linked to the Paris attacks?

He is believed to have played a key role on 13 November 2015 – when militants targeted a concert hall, stadium, restaurants and bars, killing 130 people and injuring hundreds more.

French prosecutors believe Abdeslam helped the jihadists by hiring cars, flats and hotel rooms – although his role in the actual shootings and bombings is unclear.

His brother Salim was among the attackers and blew himself up outside a cafe.

Salah Abdeslam and two associates drove from Paris to Brussels the next day. They were stopped by police at a border check, but were allowed to travel as he had not yet been identified as a suspect.

French and Belgian authorities released Abdeslam’s photo and name a day later – by which time he was one of Europe’s top fugitives.

Several flats were raided by Belgian police over the next few months. He was finally picked up on 18 March 2016.

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Donald Trump gets ahead of the facts on North Korea denuclearization

President Donald Trump fired off a frustrated tweet about North Korea after a Sunday political news show.

“Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing. Wow, we haven’t given up anything and they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, and no more testing!

Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing. Wow, we haven’t given up anything they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, no more testing!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2018

NBC Meet the Press host Todd drew Trump’s ire for saying that a more positive tone for negotiations was in the air, but not more than that.

“We don’t have a release of any of those Americans that they’ve held captive,” Todd said April 22. “We don’t have a pledge of denuclearization as the ultimate goal.”

Trump’s tweet insisted that North Korea indeed had agreed to denuclearization, so we looked at the record. In terms of what North Korea itself has said, Trump has gotten ahead of events.

North Korea announced April 20 that it would shut down its northern nuclear test site. A translation of a broadcast from North Korea’s state news agency said North Korean President Kim Jong Un unveiled the decision at a Workers’ Party Central Committee meeting.

“The northern nuclear test ground of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will be dismantled to transparently guarantee the discontinuance of the nuclear test,” the newscaster said.

Kim also reiterated the promise to conduct no weapon or missile tests while talks were under way. He added that tests were no longer needed because the country had met its goal of developing its weapons capability.

So far, North Korea has yet to officially commit to scrapping its nuclear program. It has left it to other countries to put that possibility on the table.

Most recently, South Korean President Moon Jae-in told dozens of South Korean media executives April 20 that North Korea was “expressing its commitment to complete denuclearization.”

Moon said North Korea is not demanding the withdrawal of American troops from bases in South Korea. That would be a significant shift, but as the Korean newspaper Dong-a Ilbo reported along with Moon’s comments, “there is still a considerable gap between Washington’s demand of the North’s denuclearization in a minimum period of time and Pyongyang’s calls for progressive and synchronous measures for denuclearization.”

Denuclearization has been in the air since Kim made a rare trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The official Chinese news service Xinhua reported March 28 that Kim said, “It is our consistent stand to be committed to denuclearization on the peninsula.”

Trump also tweeted about his Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo’s meeting with Kim.

“Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week, Trump tweeted April 18. “Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearization will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!”

So, no direct statements from North Korea on denuclearization, but the word has been in play and not refuted by North Korea.

The White House pointed to an opinion piece in the Washington Times as support for Trump’s latest statement.

The April 19 headline said, “North Korea agrees to ‘complete denuclearization,’ says South.”

That op-ed cited an NBC News report that had the headline, “North Korea willing to accept ‘complete denuclearization’ without conditions, Moon says.”

The NBC News post repeated a Reuters report from April 19 that said, “South Korea’s Moon says North seeking ‘complete denuclearization’.”

In the nuances of diplomacy, the transition from “seeking” to “agrees to” is a big deal.

“North Korea has agreed to talk about it (denuclearization), not to do it,” said Frank Jannuzi, president of the Mansfield Foundation, a group that funds work on U.S.-Asian policy.

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton sounded unimpressed with what North Korea has promised so far, even with the closure of its test site.

“I think this announcement on Friday is better than continued testing, but it’s not much better than that,” Cotton said on CBS’s Face the Nation April 22.  ”It’s an easily reversible decision, and they made no announcement about their medium- or short- range ballistic missiles that threaten hundreds of thousands of Americans in Korea and Japan just like it threatens our allies there.”

South Korean skeptics of the North’s intentions have noted that denuclearization has been central in previous high-level negotiations without producing tangible results.

Jannuzi said North Korea often speaks of denuclearization as the dying wish of Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

“They always said he wanted that the peninsula be denuclearized,” Jannuzi said. “All we have from the North right now is basically what’s always been there.”

Trump said that North Korea had agreed to denuclearization. While North Korea has promised to halt testing and close a weapons test site, it has not officially said that it is committed to denuclearization.

Other leaders have made that statement on their behalf, and even in that case, the only promise is that they are willing to talk about reaching that point. That is not the same as agreeing to do it.

We rate this claim False

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