(AP) A Paris criminal court sentenced a 29-year-old Algerian man Thursday to life in prison for killing a woman and trying to bomb a church near the French capital in a failed 2015 attack that investigators said was plotted by Islamic State group extremists in Syria.
The court imposed the sentence after a jury convicted Sidi Ahmed Ghlam on charges of murder and attempted terrorist murder. The life sentence allows no chance for parole for at least 22 years.
Ghlam testified at his trial that at the time of the alleged crimes he had “embraced” IS ideology. He expressed regret over choosing that path, but denied killing the woman outside the church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif. He was arrested after shooting himself in the leg and calling an ambulance.
