Last Living Suspect from Paris Attacks Gets 20 Years for Belgium Gun Battle

By Ed Adamczyk

Salah Abdelsan, pictured on a wanted poster, was given a 20-year sentence Monday for a conviction

of attempted murder. Abdelsan is the last living suspect in the 2015 Paris terror attacks.

Photo courtesy Belgian Federal Police

UPI -- The last living suspect in the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks received a 20-year sentence Monday for his involvement in a gunfight with Belgian police.

Salah Abdeslam was tried and convicted of attempted murder for his role in a 2016 shootout with police, as they came to search a house where he was hiding in March 2016.

One accomplice was killed, but Abdeslam and co-defendant Sofien Ayari escaped.

Abdeslam was captured three days later in Brussels' Molenbeek neighborhood.

Ayari also received a 20-year sentence Monday after his conviction. Neither man appeared in court to hear their punishment.

Abdeslan's 2016 arrest marked the end of a four-month manhunt. He was extradited to France in 2016 and remains in custody as he awaits a trial for his alleged involvement in a night of terror in Paris.

Large-scale coordinated attacks -- which included bombings and shootings -- on Nov. 13, 2015, killed 130 people and injured more than 400 others. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in modern French history.