In the trial of the Islamist attacks in Brussels in 2016, the jury found several of the ten accused guilty of terrorist murder. This was announced by court president Laurence Massart in the Belgian capital.
According to the Belgian news agency Belga, six people have been convicted of terrorist murder. Three were therefore acquitted of this charge. The penalties will be decided in September.
The terrorist attacks on March 22, 2016 at Zaventem Airport and in a metro station in the Belgian capital killed 32 people and injured 340. The verdict was reached by a 12-person jury after more than two weeks of incommunicado deliberations.
According to Belga, the jury also decided to hold the defendants accountable for three other people who died after the attacks – either after a long illness or by suicide. The official death toll has increased from 32 to 35.
Connection to the attacks in Paris
It is assumed that one of the ten accused has now probably died in Syria. Eight defendants in court were charged with 32 counts of terrorist murder, attempted terrorist murder of almost 700 people and involvement in the activities of a terrorist organization. The prosecution charged the ninth only with the third point.
Before the attacks in Brussels, extremists had killed 130 people and injured 350 others in a series of attacks on November 13, 2015 in Paris. The attacks in Paris and Brussels were probably engineered by the same terrorist cell, which is why six of those convicted in Paris were also on trial in Brussels – including the main defendant in the Paris trial, Salah Abdeslam.
Public interest in the trial, which involved more than 900 joint plaintiffs, was huge – which is why the trial was conducted in the converted premises of the former NATO headquarters in the north-east of the city.
