2023-07-25 20:17:13
End of the suspense in the Belgian capital, after several hours of waiting. The verdict of this “river trial” opened on November 30 has finally fallen. Abdeslam and Abrini were found guilty of terrorist assassinations.
Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the November 13, 2015 commandos and already sentenced to life imprisonment could receive a new life sentence after the one imposed last year during the Paris trial. A new phase of requisitions scheduled for early September will determine the penalties incurred by the convicted.
An unusual trial
Of the ten defendants, including one presumed dead in Syria, six were already involved in the November 13 trial. Although the Assize Court has not yet ruled on the sentences, they face life imprisonment.
Doubly condemned, Salah Abdeslam had taken the floor to challenge his participation in the Belgian attacks. The Belgian-Moroccan was in prison at the time of the events. His colleague Mohamed Abrini, sole survivor of the Belgian commando, had also tried to minimize his participation in these murderous actions.
It was the most important trial ever organized before an assize court in Belgium. For the occasion, the court had temporarily abandoned the courthouse to settle in the former premises of NATO. It pitted the defendants against a thousand civil parties. Thirty-six jurors, including 12 incumbents and 24 alternates, sat throughout the proceedings, an unprecedented figure for the kingdom.
As a reminder, the jihadists had plans at the time to strike Euro 2016 football. Seven days after Salah Abdeslam’s arrest, on the morning of March 22, 2016, two men ignited their explosive belt at Brussels international airport and a third detonated it an hour later at Maelbeek station, in the European district. Claimed by the Islamic State, these attacks had left 32 dead and 700 injured or traumatized according to the indictment.
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