The president of the Brussels Assize Court, Laurence Massart, gave the floor to the prosecutors on Tuesday around 10:15 a.m. for the reading of the indictment in the trial of the attacks committed in Brussels and Zaventem on March 22, 2016.
Unlike the day before, few civil parties were present at the start of this second day of hearing. However, they were offered the possibility of following the debates via web radio. After announcing on Monday the filing of conclusions concerning the conditions of detention and transfer of the accused, Me De Taye, the lawyer for Ali El Haddad Asufi, finally decided to temporize. However, he confirmed that he had put the Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, on notice this morning. The court was therefore able to continue its program as planned.
The reading of the indictment begins after the replacement of a juror
This second day of the trial began with the replacement of the second effective juror, covered by a medical certificate, by a substitute juror, reducing the number of substitutes to 21, two of them having already failed the day before. The first effective juror also reported having recognized a name, the day before, during the identification of the civil parties. It was probably the ex-husband of one of the victims. However, he said he did not know that this person had filed a civil action, had not seen him for six years and did not know the victim himself. This juror considered that he was still fit to sit. Laurence Massart questioned the prosecution and the defense on this subject, but both declared that they had no objection to the juror concerned being maintained.
Osama Krayem still refuses to answer questions
The president of the court then took the time to explain to the jury the meaning of the oath that all of its members had taken during the jury composition hearing last week. In particular, she invited the jurors not to form an opinion before the end of the trial and reminded them that betraying their opinions, by having gestures of annoyance during testimony for example, could be synonymous with recusal. Finally, Laurence Massart reminded the jury that it had to respect professional secrecy regarding its deliberations. She also specified that the members who so wish could benefit from psychological support after the trial.
Word was then given, around 10:15 a.m., to Paule Somers and Bernard Michel, who represent the prosecution, for the reading of the indictment. They therefore detailed the identities and aliases of the accused, discussed the situation in Syria at the time as well as the attacks in Paris before moving on to the events that led to the attacks of March 22, 2016 in Zaventem and Brussels.
They then described the sequence of events as well as the results of the search of the apartment in rue Max Roos and the contents of the computer found there. The accused Osama Krayem withdrew before the start of the reading and was escorted back to a cell in Justitia. He had already refused on Monday to answer the president’s questions. The hearing adjourned at around 1:00 p.m. for the lunch break.
Several events precipitated the commission of the attacks in Brussels on March 22, 2016
Prosecutor Paule Somers explained, Tuesday morning, before the Brussels Assize Court, through the prosecution’s indictment, which has been reading since 10:15 a.m., that several elements precipitated the commission of the attacks on 22 March 2016 in Zaventem and Brussels. It was essentially the identification of several suspects, as the investigation into the attacks in Paris progressed, that prompted the members of the terrorist cell still alive to act.
Several suspects of the attacks in France on November 13, 2015, starting with Mohamed Abrini and Salah Abdeslam, were quickly identified and sought after by Belgian and French investigators, recalled the prosecutor.
A first major arrest then took place on November 26, 2015, that of another suspect, Mohamed Bakkali. “He is suspected in particular of having rented several” conspiratorial apartments“and to have”transported suicide bombers“, specifies the indictment. Then, on December 4, a search notice with the photos of Najim Laachraoui and Mohamed Belkaïd is published in the press. They are presented as probable coordinators of the attacks in Paris and are then known only under their false names, Soufiane Kayal and Samir Bouzid A little more than three months later, on March 15, 2016, what is now known as the “shooting of the rue du Dries”.
Race against time
During a search of an apartment on rue du Dries in Forest, the investigators, who thought they had discovered an abandoned hideout of the terrorist cell, were greeted by Kalashnikov fire. After a strong chabrol of several hours, one of the three terrorists who are entrenched in this house, Mohamed Belkaïd, is killed by the special units. The other two are Salah Abdeslam and Sofien Ayari. They managed to escape. The next day, March 16, some media then disclose the names and photos of Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, as those who rented this apartment in Forest. New press articles will be published on March 18 about the two brothers, with information linking them too to the attacks in Paris.
That same day, Salah Abdelsam and Sofien Ayari were arrested on rue des Quatre Vents in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean. Finally, on March 21, the day before the attacks, the real name of Najim Laachraoui was published in the press at the request of the judicial authorities. “These events precipitated the commission of the attacks in Brussels. Identified in broad daylight and fearing being arrested in turn, the surviving members of the terrorist cell, reformed after the attacks in Paris, decided to act on March 22, 2016”, wrote the prosecutors. This reality emerges from documents found in a computer abandoned by suicide bombers, near rue Max Roos in Schaerbeek. The accused Mohamed Abrini also declared that “the noose was tightening”.