Lawyers for Bataclan terrorist Salah Abdeslam deny claims he is to become a father
By JAMES REYNOLDS
Published: 10:27 EDT, 11 March 2025 | Updated: 11:35 EDT, 11 March 2025
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The lawyers for Bataclan terrorist Salah Abdeslam have denied claims he is set to become a father while serving a life sentence for the ISIS atrocity.
Samia Maktouf, a lawyer who represented the victims of the 2015 attack, told French outlet Cnews that Abdeslam's partner was pregnant despite his being in jail.
'A prisoner has the right to sexual relations in prison,' she said, as reported by De Telegraaf.
'Even a terrorist retains fundamental rights under the rule of law, including human dignity, including the possibility of having a family life, even behind bars.'
But the claims were vehemently denied by Abdeslam's lawyers, who branded them 'completely false' in a press release.
'This is not true,' they asserted. 'We are astonished that a lawyer has taken it upon himself to spread the alleged information that Salah Abdeslam's girlfriend is pregnant.'
The only surviving perpetrator of the November 2015 Paris attacks was tried in Belgium in 2016 and is serving jail time in the Vendin-le-Vieil prison in Pas-de-Calais.
While imprisoned, he had a religious marriage over the phone to an anonymous woman chosen by his father, it was revealed in 2022.
Salah Abdeslam is the only surviving perpetrator of the November 2015 Paris attacks
French police with protective shields walk in line near the Bataclan concert hall following fatal shootings in Paris, France, November 14, 2015
People are evacuated through rue Oberkampf near the Bataclan concert hall in central Paris, early on November 14, 2015
His lawyers added that Abdeslam has 'a right to a private life' and said that 'it is up to us to defend that privacy, including by taking legal action against those who might infringe on it'.
Abdeslam is the only surviving member of the 10-man ISIS group cell that killed 130 people and injured 490 in Paris in November 2015.
The Bataclan massacre was the worst terror attack in the country's history.
Gunmen and bombers attacked busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at locations around Paris on November 13.
Abdeslam then fled to Brussels, where he was arrested in March 2016, four days before suicide attacks that killed 32 and injured hundreds at Brussels airport and a metro station.
Both the Paris and Brussels suicide bombings were claimed by the Islamic State group, and investigators believe they were carried out by the same Belgium-based cell, including Abdeslam.
The group was planning more violence, allegedly including attacks on the Euro 2016 football cup in France.
Abdeslam was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole by a French court in June 2022.
Abdeslam was found guilty on terrorism and murder charges, with no possibility of early release, the most severe criminal sentence possible in France and one handed out only four times previously.
Rescuers evacuate an injured person near the Bataclan concert hall in central Paris, Nov 14, 2015
A victim under a blanket lays dead outside the Bataclan theater in Paris on November 13, 2015
Salah Abdeslam arrives at the opening of the trial against the nine alleged jihadists accused of taking part in the March 2016 suicide bombings, at the Justitia building in Brussels on November 30, 2022
Five Islamic State figures tried in absentia and presumed dead in Syria were also sentenced to life without parole.
Another was sentenced to life with parole possible after 22 years.
The remaining defendants received shorter sentences for reduced supporting roles.
In 2023, Abdeslam was among eight found guilty of murder and attempted murder in the 2016 Brussels terror attacks that killed 32 and injured more than 300.
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