Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attacks has refused a compensation payment of €500 owed to him by the French state over the conditions of his detention in France, according to reports on Tuesday.
Initially detained in the Brussels municipality of Forest, Abdeslam is currently being held in Fleury-Merogis, the largest high-security prison in Europe after Belgium handed him over to French authorities in 2016.
A book by French journalist Elsa Vigoureux published in April revealed that Abdeslam, 29, had turned down compensation from the French state, which in 2017 was ordered by a Versailles court to pay the convicted terrorist the sum of €500 after it ruled the conditions in which he was being held were "illegal."
The ruling followed reports that a 2016 decision to put Abdeslam under strict, 24-hour surveillance lacked "legal basis."
Abdeslam's lawyer was made aware of the compensation ruling in 2018, after prison authorities contacted him asking for his client's bank details, which, according to French daily Le Figaro, Abdeslam refused to provide.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times
