Brussels Attack Suspect Salah Abdeslam Gets New Defense Lawyer for October Trial

Delphine Paci has agreed to defend Salah Abdeslam, after the renunciation of French lawyer Olivia Ronen, who represented his interests at the trial of the Paris attacks. "It seems to me irreconcilable to start a legal battle on the merits of the case in Brussels while Abdeslam has finally given up defending himself in the Paris procedure by not appealing the decision of June 29, 2022," the lawyer told L’Avenir.

At the Paris trial, Delphine Paci was defending Hamza Attou, one of the three defendants appearing free. The lawyer, who has already defended several terrorism defendants in Brussels, will be assisted by a colleague whose identity she did not reveal to ensure Salah Abdeslam’s defense.

The Moroccan was sentenced in June by the Paris Assize Court to life imprisonment and an irreducible security sentence, for his role in the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris. Transferred on July 13 to the Ittre prison in Belgium, he will appear, with nine other defendants, at the trial of the March 22, 2016 attacks in Brussels which opens on October 13 at the Brussels Assize Court.