The presiding judge said the Paris court found Jawad Bendaoud, an outspoken 31-year-old confirmed street criminal, not guilty of providing lodging to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police when they were the most-wanted criminals in France.

Bendaoud had denied knowing the identity of his renters. One of the two men he hid was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks.

The court also convicted and sentenced his two co-defendants. Mohamed Soumah, who was accused of acting as an intermediary, received a five-year prison sentence. Youssef Ait-Boulahcen, who was accused of being aware of the extremist’s whereabouts and not informing authorities, was sentenced to three years. </s> A French court has acquitted a man charged with harbouring Islamic extremists after they carried out the 2015 Paris attacks, in the first trial related to the country’s deadliest extremist violence since the Second World War.

The presiding judge said the Paris court found Jawad Bendaoud, an outspoken 31-year-old confirmed street criminal, not guilty of providing lodging to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police when they were the most-wanted criminals in France.

Bendaoud had denied knowing the identity of his renters. One of the two men he hid was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks.

The court also convicted and sentenced his two co-defendants. Mohamed Soumah, who was accused of acting as an intermediary, received a five-year prison sentence. Youssef Ait-Boulahcen, who was accused of being aware of the extremist’s whereabouts and not informing authorities, was sentenced to three years. </s> The Latest on the trial of a man charged with harboring terrorists from 2015 Paris attacks (all times local):

A French court has acquitted a man charged with harboring Islamic extremists after they carried out the 2015 Paris attacks, in the first trial related to the country's deadliest extremist violence since World War II.

The presiding judge said the Paris court found Jawad Bendaoud, an outspoken 31-year-old confirmed street criminal, not guilty of providing lodging to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police when they were the most-wanted criminals in France.

Bendaoud had denied knowing the identity of his renters. One of the two men he hid was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks.

The court also convicted and sentenced his two co-defendants. Mohamed Soumah, who was accused of acting as an intermediary, received a five-year prison sentence. Youssef Ait-Boulahcen, who was accused of being aware of the extremist's whereabouts and not informing authorities, was sentenced to three years.

A French court is expected to hand down a verdict for a man accused of harboring killers who carried out the 2015 Paris attacks, in the first trial related to the country's deadliest extremist violence since World War II.

Jawad Bendaoud, a 31-year-old street criminal, faces up to six years in prison if convicted of providing lodging to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police when they were the most-wanted criminals in France.

Bendaoud has denied knowing who he had rented the apartment to.

The prosecutor requested a four-year term for Bendaoud, saying he knew he was hiding criminals.

A verdict is also expected for his two co-defendants. </s> A French court on Wednesday jailed two men in the first trial stemming from the 2015 Islamic State attacks in Paris in which jihadists massacred 130 people.

Mohamed Soumah, a convicted petty criminal, was handed a five-year jail term for helping two IS jihadists find a hideout after the November 13, 2015 attacks, the worst on French soil since World War II.

And Youssef Ait Boulahcen, the cousin of the attacks' ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was given a four-year sentence with one year suspended for "failing to report a terrorist crime".

The court has been packed for the trial, which started days before a separate case in Belgium involving Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the only surviving attacker from the Paris atrocities.

The focus of the trial had been 31-year-old Jawad Bendaoud, a drug dealer who became a media sensation in France after renting his flat to the two jihadists but insisting nothing about them had seemed suspicious.

Bendaoud became a national laughing stock after giving an infamous TV interview in which he insisted "I didn't know they were terrorists", despite the country having been on lockdown on the hunt for fugitive jihadists at the time.

He was cleared on Wednesday.

Bendaoud argued he had previously rented his grubby flat in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis to Eastern European gangsters without asking any questions, and that all he knew about the men who arrived after the attacks was that they wanted somewhere with water where they could pray.

Abaaoud and his accomplice Chakib Akrouh were killed in a massive police raid at the apartment on November 18, five days after the attacks.

They were believed to have been planning a fresh suicide attack on the French capital's La Defense business district when they were killed.

Prosecutors had sought a four-year jail term for Bendaoud and initially tried to argue he knew he was harbouring terrorists, but judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said there was no evidence against him.

"It cannot be proven that Jawad Bendaoud provided accommodation to the terrorists... in order to shelter them from being found," Prevost-Desprez told the court.

Bendaoud, who has played the clown before a packed courtroom since February 24, raised his arms in triumph and clapped his police guards on the shoulder as Prevost-Desprez handed down the verdict.

- One-man show -

While it is his co-defendants that are going to jail, Bendaoud, who has been held in isolation for much of the past two years, dominated the trial with dramatic and comic outbursts.

At one point he complained that no one would want to join his cocaine-dealing ventures now because of the unwanted publicity, and at another he regaled the courtroom with a tale about bonding with a rat in prison.

Relatives of the victims said during the trial that his antics had deepened their anguish.

"I was outraged to hear laughter during these debates," said Patrick, who like other victims' relatives was only identified by their first names during the trial at their request.

"I'm not here to see a show," said the man, whose daughter Nathalie was killed at the Bataclan concert-goers where the jihadists gunned down and blew up 90 people enjoying a show by California rockers Eagles of Death Metal.

Despite the one-liners, both Bendaoud and Soumah had appeared moved by parents' testimony, which at one point reduced both of them to tears.

Boulahcen, whose sister Hasna was killed alongside the two jihadists in the raid on the apartment, had not been held in custody during the trial.

Bendaoud was set to be released on Wednesday night, a prison source said. </s> PARIS (AP) - The Latest on the trial of a man charged with harboring terrorists from 2015 Paris attacks (all times local):

A French court has acquitted a man charged with harboring Islamic extremists after they carried out the 2015 Paris attacks, in the first trial related to the country's deadliest extremist violence since World War II.

FILE - In this Nov.19, 2015 file photo, the building of the police raid on an apartment is pictured in Paris suburb Saint-Denis. A French court is expected to hand down Wednesday Feb.14, 2018 a verdict for a man accused of harboring killers who carried out the 2015 Paris attacks. Jawad Bendaoud, a 31-year-old street criminal, faces up to six years in prison if convicted of providing lodging to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police when they were the most-wanted criminals in France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, Fie)

The presiding judge said the Paris court found Jawad Bendaoud, an outspoken 31-year-old confirmed street criminal, not guilty of providing lodging to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police when they were the most-wanted criminals in France.

Bendaoud had denied knowing the identity of his renters. One of the two men he hid was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks.

The court also convicted and sentenced his two co-defendants. Mohamed Soumah, who was accused of acting as an intermediary, received a five-year prison sentence. Youssef Ait-Boulahcen, who was accused of being aware of the extremist's whereabouts and not informing authorities, was sentenced to three years.

A French court is expected to hand down a verdict for a man accused of harboring killers who carried out the 2015 Paris attacks, in the first trial related to the country's deadliest extremist violence since World War II.

Jawad Bendaoud, a 31-year-old street criminal, faces up to six years in prison if convicted of providing lodging to two of the attackers and helping them hide from police when they were the most-wanted criminals in France.

Bendaoud has denied knowing who he had rented the apartment to.

The prosecutor requested a four-year term for Bendaoud, saying he knew he was hiding criminals.

A verdict is also expected for his two co-defendants. </s> A Belgian court will give its verdict Monday on Salah Abdeslam, the last surviving suspect in the Paris Islamist attacks, over a bloody 2016 shootout with police in Brussels that led to his capture.

Prosecutors asked at the trial in February for Abdeslam and his co-defendant Sofiane Ayari to be jailed for up to 20 years if found guilty on charges of terrorist-related attempted murder and possession of banned weapons.

Neither Abdeslam, who is being held in jail in France pending a separate trial over the 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people died, nor Ayari is expected to be in court in Brussels for the verdict, a court spokesman told AFP.

Belgian security forces will mount a major operation around the imposing Palace of Justice building in Brussels for the verdict, which judges are due to start reading out at 0645 GMT.

Abdeslam, 28, a Belgian-born French national, was transported to the court from France for the first day of the trial amid tight security including a helicopter escort, while Tunisian national Ayari, 24, is in jail in Belgium.

On the first day of the trial, Abdeslam proclaimed that he would only put his “trust in Allah” and accused the court of being biased against Muslims.

He then refused to attend the rest of the proceedings.

Three police officers were wounded in the gun battle after police acting on a tip-off over the Paris attacks raided a flat in the Forest area of Brussels on March 15, 2016.

Abdeslam was arrested three days later in the largely immigrant Molenbeek area of the Belgian capital, near his family home.

On March 22 suicide bombers from a cell linked to the Paris attacks killed 32 people and wounded hundreds more at Brussels airport and a metro station in the Belgian capital.

Investigators say Abedeslam’s arrest spurred the Brussels bombers to bring forward the attacks, which had originally been planned for a later date, as they feared they could be captured.

Prosecutors have said that DNA links Abdeslam to the apartment in the Forest district of Brussels where the shooting took place, but not to the weapons themselves that were used.

After Abdeslam refused to return to court for the trial in February, his lawyer Sven Mary sought the case’s dismissal on a technicality over how the judges were named to investigate the gun battle, and said media leaks had denied him a fair trial.

But lawyers for police wounded in the gun battle accused Abdeslam of “mocking” the trial.

One of the injured police officers was still suffering from after-effects including brain lesions, epileptic fits and vision and balance problems.

An organisation representing victims of the Brussels attacks and their families has asked for symbolic damages of one euro from the trial.

The Belgian trial is a prelude to a bigger one that Abdeslam will face in France at a later date over the November 13, 2015, Paris attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

Abdeslam’s brother Brahim was one of the suicide bombers. </s> Salah Abdeslam still faces trial over the 2015 Paris attacks, but a Belgian court sentenced him to 20 years in prison on Monday over charges related to his shootout with police when he resisted arrest in Brussels months after the deadly violence in Paris.

Abdeslam, 28, was found guilty of attempted terrorist murder and illegal possession of firearms after attacking the police officers who found him and two other suspects hiding out in a Brussels apartment.

Months earlier, Abdeslam had become the subject of a manhunt as the only known survivor of the Islamic State terror cell that carried out the suicide bombings and mass shootings on Nov. 13, 2015, that killed at least 130 people — many of them at the Bataclan concert hall.

Three Belgian officers were wounded and one suspect was killed in the shootout that flushed Abdeslam from his hiding place. He was arrested a few days later in the immigrant neighborhood of Molenbeek.

The Palais de Justice in Brussels rendered its verdict on Abdeslam and an accomplice, Sofien Ayari, on Monday. Both of them received 20-year sentences.

The Belgian trial began more than two months ago, when Abdeslam refused to stand and said that he would not answer any questions during the proceedings.

"Salah Abdeslam is not attending the court in Brussels," reports Belgian media outlet Flanders News. "He has chosen to remain in his jail cell outside Paris where he is awaiting trial in connection with the Paris attacks."

In France, the trial for Abdeslam regarding the Paris attacks isn't expected to begin for months. </s> A Belgian court on Monday found Salah Abdeslam, the last surviving suspect in the Paris attacks, guilty of terrorism-related attempted murder over a shootout with police in Brussels days before his capture in 2016, and sentenced him to 20 years in jail.

In its judgment, the court in the Belgian capital said “there can be no doubt” about jihadist Salah Abdeslam and his co-defendant Sofiane Ayari’s involvement in extremism.

Prosecutors had asked for 20-year jail terms for both.

Neither 28-year-old Abdeslam -- who is being held in jail in France pending a separate trial over the 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people died -- nor Ayari, 24, were in court for the verdict.

Four police officers were wounded in the gun battle after police acting on a tip-off over the Paris attacks raided a flat in the Forest area of Brussels on March 15, 2016.

Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national, was arrested three days later in the largely immigrant Molenbeek area of the Belgian capital, near his family home.

On March 22 suicide bombers from a cell linked to the Paris attacks killed 32 people and wounded hundreds more at Brussels airport and a metro station in the Belgian capital.

The judgment said Abdeslam had written a document addressed to his mother saying that “Allah guided me and chose me among his servants to open his path. It is for that reason that I had to fight the enemies of Allah with all my strength.”

He added that his brother Brahim, who blew himself up during the Paris attacks, “did not commit suicide -- he is a hero of Islam.”

The judgment on Monday said that 34 shots in total were fired during the shootout.

Belgian police mounted tight security around the imposing Palace of Justice building in Brussels for the verdict.

Abdeslam has spent most of the last two years in jail in France.

He was transported to the court from France for the first day of the trial amid tight security including a helicopter escort, while Tunisian national Ayari, 24, is in jail in Belgium.

On the first day of the trial, Abdeslam proclaimed that he would only put his “trust in Allah” and accused the court of being biased against Muslims.

He then refused to attend the rest of the proceedings.

Investigators say Abdeslam’s arrest spurred the Brussels bombers to bring forward the 2016 attacks, which had originally been planned for a later date, as they feared they could be captured.

Prosecutors have said that DNA links Abdeslam to the apartment in the Forest district of Brussels where the shooting took place, but not to the weapons that were used.

After Abdeslam refused to return to court for the trial in February, his lawyer Sven Mary sought the case’s dismissal on a technicality over how the judges were named to investigate the gun battle, and said media leaks had denied him a fair trial.

But lawyers for police wounded in the gun battle accused Abdeslam of “mocking” the trial.

One of the injured police officers was still suffering from after-effects including brain lesions, epileptic fits and vision and balance problems.

An organisation representing victims of the Brussels attacks and their families has asked for symbolic damages of one euro from the trial.

The Belgian trial is a prelude to a bigger one that Abdeslam will face in France at a later date over the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015, which were claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group. </s> Alleged Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist leader Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi pleaded guilty to a single charge of cultural destruction at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. By Patrick Post (ANP/AFP/File)

The Hague (AFP) - The International Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced a Malian jihadist to nine years jail for razing Timbuktu's fabled shrines, in a landmark judgement experts hope will help safeguard the world's ancient monuments.

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi was convicted of a crime of "significant gravity", ICC judge Raul Pangalangan told the tribunal, adding the chamber "unanimously sentences you to nine years of imprisonment".
After the first trial on the attacks, Jawad Bendaoud is acquitted. Bendaoud rented an apartment to two of the attackers but denied knowing what they planned. Mohamed Soumah is sentenced to five years in jail for acting as an intermediary, and Youssef Ait-Boulahcen to three years for failing to inform authorities.