Belgium closed yesterday one of the most painful chapters in its history, that of the attacks on March 22, 2016 at Brussels airport and Maalbeek metro station, in which 35 people died and there were 340 injuries. The jury found Salah Abdeslam, a participant in the Paris attacks, and seven other defendants guilty of murder and participating in a terrorist group.
“On March 22, 2016 at 7:58 a.m. and 25 seconds a kamikaze detonated a homemade bomb that he was carrying in a backpack…”, the judge presiding over the room, Laurence Massart, began to read. “The hands of some were held during the last moments to those of others to endure the suffering”, he read.
Nine defendants sat in the dock: six were found guilty of murder and participation in a terrorist group, including Salah Abdeslam, Mohamed Abrini and Oussama Attar, considered the leader of the cell that organized the attacks, of who is believed to have died in Syria. Three were acquitted of murder, although two were found guilty of participating in a terrorist group.
Salah Abdeslam is the only terrorist who survived the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and who was sentenced a year ago in France to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He was supposed to detonate an explosive belt, but backed off and fled to Brussels, where he hid in various places for four months. After several attempts by the police to locate him, he was found in his neighborhood, Molenbeek, a short distance from where his family lived, on March 18, 2016. The arrest accelerated plans to attack Brussels ·les, attack that occurred four days later.
The jury also decided that instead of the 32 victims that had been officially counted, there will now be 35, as three people died months, even years later, like 23-year-old Shanti de Corte, who last year requested euthanasia due to unbearable mental suffering due to the psychological sequelae. “These people would not have died if they had not been in Maalbeek or [Zaventem airport]”, assured the magistrate.
Yesterday’s decision marks almost the end of the macro-process, which took place at the old NATO headquarters. It was the largest in the history of Belgium, it lasted for seven months and almost 1,000 civilians took part. Expectations were high yesterday to wait for the verdict, despite a delay of more than four hours, and with three rooms open to welcome the public and the civil party.
After the decision, it will be necessary to know what the penalties are, which will not be known until at least September, when new hearings and deliberations begin. To decide the guilt of the accused, the jury was locked up for 19 days in a completely isolated hotel. The only information they were able to consult were the 489 process reports.
Belgium closes a chapter in its history. The biggest attack on the territory since the Second World War. It was a Holy Tuesday with a resplendent spring sun in a city accustomed to a perennial gray, where time lived with its back to horror. The first bombs exploded at 7:58 a.m. at the airport. An hour later, on the subway.