By Lucy Williamson BBC Paris reporter Image source, Elisabeth de Pourquery/France Télévisions/Reuters Image caption, Salah Abdeslam (bottom R) was the veryfirst individual to be offered a full-life sentence without killing anybody It was a trial to match the scale of the criminalactivity. More than 400 survivors and lovedones of the dead came forward to bear witness to France’s worst peace-time attack. Fourteen accuseds were questioned in a courtroom specifically constructed for their trial, about the terrorist plot that declared 130 lives on one night in November2015 Nine months of hearings were sprinkled with breaks, each week, to permit feelings to settle. “There has neverever been a trial like this in our history,” France’s counter-terrorism districtattorney, Jean-François Ricard, stated the earlymorning after the decision. “It went beyond law,” stated Laure Khalil, who represented more than 100 victims and their households. “I would invest hours on the phone listening to one customer informing me how she felt the day previously. As legalrepresentatives, I’m not sure we’re ready for this.” “This is the veryfirst time I’ve sobbed in court throughout a statement,” Julia Courvoisier, another legalrepresentative for victims, informed us. “This story belongs to all French individuals: as attorneys, we might have had less range from the truths than in other cases.” Aside from its scale, this trial was distinct in the function it played for France. The purpose-built courtroom, with electroniccameras shooting procedures for the nationwide record, informed of a procedure that went beyond basic justice. That much was clear in the area and focus provided to the victims. In some methods, this trial belonged to them more than to the accuseds. It was constantly crucial that this procedure offer survivors a possibility to inform their story for the public record. It was something numerous of them stated they valued more than anything else. The specific judicial procedures of 20 guys might insomecases feel like a sideshow, set versus the hundreds of searing experiences the victims shared, and versus the background of nationwide injury this occasion triggered France. “We waited 4 and a half months priorto the offenders might have their state,” stated Julia Courvoisier. “In three-day trials, you can wait a day to hear the implicated. But with the number of civil celebrations who came to affirm [here], the implicated did not have the flooring upuntil January. Maybe in future, we’ll have to shot to discover a various format.” French law enables civil celebrations the right to affirm in criminal trials, and for their attorneys to ask concerns of the implicated. But the sheer number of civil celebrations in this case – most of them victims or their agents – overshadowed the number of accuseds. “There was a kind of disproportion,” stated Laure Khalil, the attorney representing more than 100 of them. “It raises concerns: when there
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