The jury of the Brussels attacks has decided to sentence between twenty years and life imprisonment to the eight accused of the terrorist attacks of March 22, 2016, at the Brussels airport and the Maelbeek metro station, in which 35 people died and 340 were injured. No new penalty has been added to Salah Abdeslam, considering that the 20 years applied for a previous shooting and the life sentence in France are “sufficient.”
The jury, after five days of deliberations, has decided that the same 20-year sentence that already weighs on Abdeslam for his participation in the shooting that took place on March 18, 2016, four days before the attacks, which ended with his arrest and accelerated plans to attack the Belgian capital, despite not being the initial objective. In addition, the person accused of terrorism and membership in a terrorist group is sentenced to life imprisonment in France without the possibility of remission, for his participation in the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris. Therefore, according to the jury, both sentences are already “sufficient.”
For his part, Oussama Attar has been sentenced to life imprisonment and the jury calls for his search and capture, despite the fact that, according to the self-proclaimed Islamic State, he died in a bombing in Syria. Furthermore, Mohamed Abrini, known as the “hat man”, for wearing this accessory at the time of the events, has been sentenced to 30 years, although he may review his sentence in five years.
As for Ossama Krayem, who bought and made the explosives and helped one of the kamikaze terrorists place the bombs that later exploded in the subway, he has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Also to Bilal El Makhoukhi, who offered weapons to the terrorists. The rest, Sofien Ayari, like Abdeslam, receives a 20-year sentence for the shooting, Ali El Haddad, 20 years. Hervé Bayingana-Muhirwa, 10 years old.
In total, ten people were accused in the process. The decision is made after six terrorists were found guilty of murder on July 25, including Abdeslam (and one in absentia, Oussama Attar); two for participation in a terrorist organization; and the other two were acquitted.
In an unprecedented decision, the jury also decided in July, when eight of the ten defendants were found guilty, that instead of the 32 victims that had been officially counted, there are 35, since three people died months, even years later. , like the young Shanti de Corte, 23 years old, who last year requested euthanasia due to unbearable psychological suffering due to the psychological consequences of the attacks.
Today’s decision culminates a macro-trial that has lasted more than seven months and whose hearings have taken place at the former NATO headquarters. It has been the largest in the history of Belgium and in which almost 1,000 civil parties have participated.
It has been a process not without controversy. It started almost two months late. It was initially scheduled for early October but did not start until December 5. The reason was due to the composition of the crystal cells in which the accused were to be held, which were separated from each other. According to defense lawyers, the individual cells contravened the European Convention on Human Rights. Finally, a new glass cabin without separation was built, where the accused could be together and have more contact with their lawyers.
The process was also slowed down by the treatment the defendants received during transfers from jail to hearings. In a ruling by the Court of Cassation, which ratified a previous ruling, the police were urged to stop the “degrading” body searches that they subjected six of the accused to, in which they were forced to lie naked and on their knees to check that they were not hiding any object inside their body.
Belgium thus definitively closes one of the most tragic chapters in its recent history. The attacks were the largest attack in the country since World War II.
