The council chamber of the Brussels court went beyond the requisitions of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which demanded the appearance of eight suspects out of the thirteen accused. Three benefit from a dismissal.
Le Monde with AFP
Almost five years after the jihadist attacks which brought mourning to Brussels , the French Salah Abdeslam and nine others indicted were referred to an assize court, announced Tuesday, January 5, the Belgian justice.
In an order issued behind closed doors, the chamber of Council of the Brussels court went beyond the requisitions of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which demanded the appearance at the assizes of eight suspects (including Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the November 13 commandos), and not ten.
In addition, three of the thirteen accused in this sprawling case are dismissed for lack of sufficient charges, confirmed a spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, Eric Van Duyse, who refused to specify the identities .
The trial is not expected to take place before the second half of 2022 in Brussels. The decision of the council chamber is subject to appeal. And concerning the suspects returned to the assizes, a final green light will have to be given by another jurisdiction, the indictments chamber.
Franco-Belgian jihadist cell
March 22, 2016 in the morning, a double suicide bombing attack at the airport, then in a train in the Brussels metro, left 32 dead and more than 340 injured. Perpetrated by the same Franco-Belgian jihadist cell at the origin of the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis (130 dead), it had been claimed by the Islamic State organization.
After four years of investigation, thirteen indictments had been pronounced, including that of Salah Abdeslam, alleged courier of several members of the cell of the terrorist attacks. 2015. The 31-year-old jihadist, detained in France, was indicted in particular for “assassinations in a terrorist context” and risks life imprisonment.
Among the nine other suspects returned to the assizes before a popular jury, Osama Atar, suspected of having planned the attacks, probably dead in Syria, could be tried in his absence, as in the November 13 proceedings where his name also appears in first place.
Are also liable to life imprisonment Mohamed Abrini, “the man in the hat”, who gave up blowing himself up in the air roport, and Osama Krayem, who turned back after accompanying the suicide bomber to the metro.
None of them was present in December during the three-day hearing before the council chamber which allowed the lawyers of the suspects, as the civil parties, to issue a final opinion. The prosecution’s requests were then generally not contested by the lawyers.
Deadliest attack perpetrated on Belgian soil
Among the thirteen accused, men aged between 27 and 42 years old, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office wanted three to be able to benefit from a dismissal and that two others be tried before a criminal court to answer solely on the count of “participation in the activities of a terrorist group”. It was only partially followed.
The council chamber found that brothers Smail and Ibrahim Farisi , suspected of having provided logistical assistance to the suicide bombers, were to be tried at the assizes and not in correctional proceedings, said a judicial source.
This trial of the most deadly attack perpetrated on Belgian soil since the second world war should not be held before eighteen months. France must first carry out that of the November 13 attacks, scheduled for Paris from September 8, 2021 to the end of March 2022. The former headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a large ultra-secure space, has been redesigned to accommodate the thousand people affected by this extraordinary trial.
For Salah Abdeslam, the upcoming trial will be his second in Belgium. The Frenchman of Moroccan origin, who grew up in the town of Molenbeek, was already sentenced, in 2018, to twenty years in prison for shooting at police three days before his arrest, on March 18, 2016 in the Belgian capital.