Trial of the Brussels attacks: the prosecution exhausts Abrini on the first day of the indictment

After six months of hearings and the hearing of hundreds of witnesses, the trial of the March 2016 attacks in Brussels has just entered a new phase. On Tuesday, the prosecutor's office began its requisitions. A large part of this first day was devoted to Mohamed Abrini, the one who gave up blowing himself up at Brussels-Zaventem airport, the one who was nicknamed during the investigation "the man in the hat" because of his appearance on surveillance cameras. For the prosecution, Mohamed Abrini is as guilty of terrorist attack as those who finally blew themselves up in the middle of the crowd causing sixteen deaths in the terminal.

Court sketch made on September 12, 2022, and showing the accused Sofiane Ayari, Salah Abdeslam, Oussama Krayem and Mohamed Abrini, at the opening of the preliminary hearing of the trial of the jihadist attacks of March 2016, in Brussels. AFP - BENOIT PEYRUCQ

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With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet

According to prosecutors, Mohamed Abrini is indeed one of the perpetrators of the attack on the Brussels airport of Zaventem in the same way as the other two terrorists who blew themselves up. For the prosecution, the fact that Mohamed Abrini gave up at the last minute does not change anything. He did not give up, he just fled because he waited for the first explosion to decide to leave Zaventem airport.

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He renounced dying, not committing the attack ", asserts the prosecutor who adds "survival reflex or cowardice of the one who did not want to go to the end". He is linked to the manufacture of the TATP explosive that was used in Zaventem and the Maelbeek metro station and he knew full well how to defuse his bomb. Instead, without even spreading his explosive cart that remains in the middle of the crowd, he simply leaves the terminal.

Before that, he had many opportunities to leave the terrorist cell to return to Syria. He says that was his intention, but he never took those opportunities. For the prosecution, nothing exonerates Mohamed Abrini from his guilt as a "co-author" of the attacks.

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Read on on the same topics:

• Belgium
• Justice
• Terrorism