Gunman in foiled 2015 Paris train attack sentenced to life in jail
- Ayoub El Khazzani, from Morocco, was thwarted by passengers, including several off-duty US soldiers
- He had been armed with an AK-47 automatic rifle and 300 rounds of ammunition
A French court on Thursday jailed for life a Moroccan man who planned a terror attack on a Paris-bound international train in 2015 but was thwarted by passengers, including off-duty US soldiers.
The Paris court convicted Ayoub El Khazzani, now 31, over the August 2015 plot on the Amsterdam-Paris high-speed Thalys train and also issued sentences of between seven to 27 years to three accomplices.
The events inspired a 2018 film The 15:17 to Paris directed by Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood who had at the start of the trial been mooted as a possible witness but in the end was not asked to appear.
The court ruled Khazzani would have committed “an indiscriminate attack” which would have been “particularly deadly”, had it not been for “a combination of particularly improbable circumstances” including faulty ammunition and “the exceptional courage of the passengers”.
Khazzani showed no emotion as the verdict was read out.