Already condemned in France for the attacks of November 13, 2015, in Paris and Saint-Denis, Salah Abdeslam is a principal accused among sixteen people, including the three deceased suicide bomber.
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Between eight to ten months. The planned duration of the assize trial which is to open on Monday, September 12, in Brussels, to judge the alleged perpetrators of the attacks at Zaventem airport and at Maelbeek metro station, in the Belgian capital, on 22 March 2016, promises to be exceptional. The three suicide operations (two at the airport, one in the metro), committed at an hour apart, left 32 dead, apart from the suicide bomber, and 340 injured, only four days after the arrest, in Molenbeek, of Salah Abdeslam. The only survivor of the three commandos which had struck Paris and Saint-Denis, on November 13, 2015, during attacks claimed by the Islamic State organization.
Salah Abdeslam, already sentenced to twenty years in prison, in Brussels, in April 2018, for his involvement in a shooting in Forest, three days before his arrest, was also sentenced to Paris, in June, to perpetuity incompressible for his participation in the attacks committed in France. He will again be the main accused of this new trial-flew, among sixteen people in total, including the three deceased suicide bombers: Najim Laachraoui, Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui. Mohamed Abrini and Osama Krayem, both already sentenced to Paris, will be two of the other accused present. They had to explode, the first in Zaventem, the second in the metro, but have given up in extremis.
All the accused, involved in various degrees, will have to respond to assassinations, or assassination attempts, committed in a terrorist context. Osama Atar will be tried in absentia – he would have died in Syria during an air strike from the international coalition, in 2017 – for his role as leader of a terrorist group.
completely glassy individual box
Given the exceptional character of the facts and the unprecedented magnitude of this trial in Belgium, the Assize Court had to abandon the dilapidation palace of Brussels to settle in the former NATO premises, far away downtown. The organization, entrusted as a last resort to the federal prosecution, already poses various questions and the president of the court, Laurence Massart, will have to decide some of them after a preliminary hearing, the debates really begin October 10.
Defense lawyers speak of “major problems”, the fact that the accused will be placed in individual, completely glassy boxes, preventing direct communication with their defenders. The latter cite as an example the Paris Special Assize Court, where the accused were seated in a collective, semi-open space. “The contact of the accused with lawyers, their participation in the debates, respect for the presumption of innocence, these are the requirements of the procedure, but we have obviously not been heard. As a last resort, it is however the President of the Court who will decide, “said Luc Hennart, former president of the Brussels Court of First Instance and spokesperson for the Assize Court for the trial.
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