You can literally feel everyone’s tension. The courtroom in Brussels is packed on Tuesday evening – spectators, journalists, victims and relatives of the Islamist attacks of 2016 in the Belgian capital are waiting spellbound for the jury’s decision. After hours of waiting, it’s really quick. The president of the court read out the long-awaited guilty verdicts at breakneck speed.
Six out of ten accused men were therefore convicted of terrorist murder. This was reported by the Belgian news agency Belga. Two accused brothers were acquitted of all charges. The trial, which dragged on into the night, was initially only about the guilty verdict. How exactly the penalties look like will be decided from September.
32 people died, 340 were injured
In the terrorist attacks at the airport in the Belgian capital and in a subway station on March 22, 2016, 32 people died and 340 were injured. According to the jury’s decision, the accused will also be held accountable for three other people who died after the attacks due to illness or suicide. According to Belga, the official death toll rose to 35.
Together with hooded security forces, the accused sat in a glass case behind their defense attorneys yesterday. When it finally started, it became dead quiet in the rather desolate hall. As Belga reported, six defendants are also guilty of attempted terrorist murder. These six and two other defendants were found guilty of involvement in the activities of a terrorist organization. However, one defendant was missing from the court: it is assumed that he has probably died in Syria in the meantime.
For their 18-day deliberations, the jury was housed in an undisclosed location and completely isolated from the outside world. Attorney Michel Degrève, who represented one of the acquitted brothers, was particularly pleased with her verdict. We are “very satisfied” with the result, he said. “Justice has been served.”
connection with the attacks in Paris
The most prominent defendant was probably Salah Abdeslam, who is considered the mastermind behind the Paris attacks: Before the attacks in Brussels, extremists had killed 130 people and injured 350 others in a series of attacks on November 13, 2015 in the French capital. 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.
According to Belga, Abdeslam was found guilty in Brussels of involvement in the activities of a terrorist organization, terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder – even though he was in prison on the day of the attack. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the trial surrounding the attacks in the French capital and to 20 years in prison in a separate trial for shooting at police officers shortly before his arrest in Brussels in 2016.
According to Belga, the accused Mohamed Abrini was also found guilty on all three counts. He was supposed to detonate another bomb at Zaventem Airport, but fled and became known as the “man with a hat” through surveillance footage. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment in Paris.
The sentence will be decided in September
Public interest in the trial was huge: it was therefore conducted with more than 900 joint plaintiffs in the converted premises of the former NATO headquarters in the north-east of the city.
The mammoth trial got off to a rocky start and was marked by small legal wars for weeks. Due to a dispute about the safety precautions, the start originally planned for mid-October had to be postponed by almost two months. In between, the accused had not taken part in the trial – in protest against their transport conditions and the regular searches, during which they had to undress.
Over the past few years, victims and victim organizations have repeatedly complained about insufficient and complicated support from the state. The lawyer Maryse Alié, who represents the victims for the organization Life4Brussels (Life for Brussels), said on the night of the German Press Agency that some decisions had been made that a professional judge would have made differently.
“But overall we applaud this verdict, the jury’s work, their focus, their determination and their dedication. It was a good exercise in justice from the start.” It will be about the sentence for those convicted from September. Then the jury will deliberate again.
