High-Profile Terrorism Trial: Guilty Verdicts, Life Sentences, and Legal Challenges

2023-09-03 13:18:01

The hearing will then be suspended until Tuesday to give way, Monday afternoon, in the same room, to a civil debate in summary proceedings opposing Salah Abdeslam to the Belgian State.

The jury of the Brussels Assize Court found eight of the 10 defendants guilty, in a judgment delivered on July 25. Six of the eight men are guilty of murder, attempted murder and membership in a terrorist group. They are Osama Atar (presumed dead), Mohamed Abrini, Osama Krayem, Salah Abdeslam, Ali El Haddad Asufi and Bilal El Makhoukhi. The other two are only for belonging to a terrorist group. They are Sofien Ayari and Hervé Bayingana Muhirwa.

Monday morning, the two federal prosecutors will begin their indictment, mentioning for each of the eight concerned the sentence that they believe that the jury and the court should pronounce. The two magistrates will be interrupted at midday, because the civil court of Brussels must urgently examine a request from Salah Abdeslam’s lawyers. They ask the judge to find that the transfer of their client from Belgium to France, which should take place at the end of the assize trial in Brussels, is illegal. They request that Salah Abdeslam be able to serve his sentence in Belgium.

The latter should in theory return to France to serve the prison sentence to which he was sentenced by the special assize court of Paris, whose proceedings were held before those of the assize court of Brussels.

On June 29, 2022, Abdelsam was sentenced by the Parisian court to an irreducible life sentence for his role in the attacks of November 13, 2015 in the French capital. He was then transferred to a Belgian prison so that he could appear at his trial for the attacks of March 22, 2016 in Brussels, which began at Justitia in Haren last December.

On July 25, Salah Abdeslam was found guilty by the Brussels jury of murders and attempted murders in a terrorist context as well as of belonging to a terrorist group. He therefore faces a further life sentence.

The indictment of federal prosecutors will resume Tuesday morning. The floor will then be given to the lawyers of the eight culprits and finally to the latter for their possible last words. The jury will leave for a second time in deliberation, in which the three judges of the court will take part this time. The verdict will be pronounced in open court, which will close the criminal part of this extraordinary trial.

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