Attacks in Brussels: ten accused, including Salah Abdeslam, sent back to the assizes

The dock at the Brussels courthouse during a hearing where Salah Abdeslam appeared.

February 5, 2018. AP - Emmanuel Dunand

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

The trial for the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris will take place from September 2022 until the following March.

For the same Franco-Belgian terrorist cell accused of the Brussels attacks of March 22, 2016, the trial is also in sight.

Ten suspected terrorists were referred to the assizes on Tuesday, January 5 by Belgian justice, including the Franco-Belgian Salah Abdeslam, the only member still alive among the terrorists of the Paris attacks.

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With our correspondent in Brussels

,

Pierre Benazet

After closed hearings in December, the body called in Belgium chamber of the council decided that there would be only one trial in assizes for

the attacks of March 22, 2016

in Brussels.

The prosecution had requested a simple correctional judgment for two of the accused, the Farisi brothers accused of having rented one of the terrorists' caches.

In the end, the council chamber decided to join their case to that of the other eight.

The trial in assizes before a popular jury will be held in the former NATO headquarters.

The ten accused will have to answer

for the attacks of Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station

which left 340 wounded and 32 dead plus three terrorists.

Three non-place

Three other defendants were dismissed.

One of them had already been exonerated and the other two were suspected of having supplied acid for the explosives and of having given information about the airport.

Among the eight main accused, in addition to

Salah Abdeslam

and Sofien Ayari already sentenced in Belgium to twenty years imprisonment, include, for example, Mohammed Abrini or Osama Krayem who had given up blowing themselves up at the airport or in the metro.

Three others are accused of logistical aid and one last, Osama Atar, presumed dead since 2017 will be tried in absentia.

Tuesday's decision will still have to be formally validated by an indictments chamber and the assize hearings should begin in 18 months, around mid-2022, in any case after the end of the trial of the terrorist attacks. Paris.

It should last six to nine months

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