Trial against terrorist attacks in Brussels with 35 deaths: Several men received long prison sentences

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In the huge trial surrounding the 2016 terror attacks in Brussels, which killed 35 people, several men were sentenced to long prison terms. A jury announced this on Friday in the Belgian capital, according to the Belga news agency. The men had already been found guilty in July of, among other things, terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder, and now the question was what the exact punishment would be.

According to the information, the prison sentences ranged from ten years to life imprisonment. Salah Abdeslam, the main perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attacks, who was also charged in Brussels, received no additional prison sentence because he had already been sentenced to 20 years in prison for another crime in Belgium.

In the attacks of March 22, 2016, three suicide bombers from the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization detonated bombs at Zaventem Airport in Brussels and at a metro station in the EU district. Dozens of people were killed and 340 others were injured, some seriously.

More than 900 co-plaintiffs

Unlike the verdict on guilt and innocence in July, the twelve jurors did not decide alone, but together with the court. The jury, the president of the court and her two deputy judges have been housed in an unknown location and isolated from the outside world since Monday for their deliberations.

A total of ten men were charged with the attacks in Brussels. However, in July one person went missing from court: he is now believed to have died in Syria.

Before the Brussels attacks, extremists killed 130 people and injured 350 others in a series of attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015. The attacks in Paris and Brussels were likely orchestrated by the same terrorist cell. That is why six of those convicted in Paris also stood trial in Brussels – including the main defendant in the Paris trial, Salah Abdeslam.

Public interest in the trial with more than 900 co-plaintiffs was great. That’s why the trial was held in converted rooms at the former NATO headquarters in the northeast of the city. (SDA)

Source: Blick