On 29 June 2022 he was convicted of involvement in the November 2015 Paris attacks and received a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years.

Abrini was born to Moroccan parents in Berchem, Brussels, and grew up in the neighbouring district of Molenbeek, where he was a childhood friend of future terrorist Salah Abdeslam.

[2] In June 2015 Abrini went to Syria to visit his brother's grave and met up with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, another childhood friend from Molenbeek.

On 22 March 2016, he went to Brussels Airport in Zaventem with two other suicide bombers, Najim Laachraoui and Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, but fled without detonating his suitcase of explosives.

He was arrested on 8 April 2016 in the Brussels district of Anderlecht and admitted to being the "man in a hat" who had been captured on CCTV at the airport alongside the suicide bombers.