A jury in a Belgian criminal court sentenced seven men responsible for organizing a series of bomb attacks in Brussels in March 2016 on Friday to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life. The verdicts came seven years after the deadliest terrorist attack in Belgium’s history, which disrupted a multicultural society and sent shockwaves across Europe.
Three of the men, found guilty of murder and attempted murder earlier this year, were sentenced to life imprisonment, including one who is presumed dead in Syria. Four others, including two who were acquitted of murder by the jury but found guilty of participating in the activities of a terrorist group, received sentences of ten to thirty years.
The jury did not impose a new sentence on Salah Abdeslam, who had already been sentenced to life imprisonment for organizing the 2015 Paris attacks and to 20 years for taking part in a separate shooting in 2016, after ruling that the existing sentences “ were sufficient. ”
The jury decided against the withdrawal of the Belgian nationality of five men, requested by the federal public prosecutor’s office. That request had drawn accusations of racism from legal representatives of the five men, four of whom were Belgian Moroccans and one Belgian Rwandan.
The chairman, Laurence Massart, read out the jury’s verdicts at the former NATO headquarters in Brussels, which had been converted into a court for the trial. The decision ended a long and painful process of justice for the victims, but left many questions unanswered about the motives of the home-bred terrorists and whether authorities did enough to prevent the attacks.
Three homemade bombs packed with nails were detonated in an airport departure lounge and a busy metro station on March 22, 2016, killing 32 people from eight countries and injuring 340 others. The attacks were claimed by the same Islamic State cell that took responsibility for a series of terrorist attacks in Paris last year, making the two combined attacks Islamic State’s deadliest operation in Europe. The explosions in Brussels also killed three suicide bombers: Najim Laachraoui, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Khalid el-Bakraoui.
A long-awaited trial of ten men accused of planning the Brussels attacks lasted eight months and ended in July. It was the largest ever in Belgium, with testimonies from almost a thousand registered survivors, witnesses and experts.
This year, a jury of Brussels residents of different ages and ethnic backgrounds found eight men guilty and acquitted two before parting ways for a summer break. They resumed their work on Monday and reached an agreement on the sentence after five days of deliberations at a secret location and without contact with the outside world.
The group of eight included Salah Abdeslam, the only Parisian attacker still alive; Mohamed Abrini, who was previously at Brussels Airport in March 2016 and left behind a suitcase containing explosives without detonating it; and Osama Krayem, a Swede accused of planning to take part in the subway bombings. One of the men, Oussama Attar, was tried in absentia; he was declared dead by Islamic State in November 2017, although his death has never been confirmed.
Four men convicted on Friday were punished in an earlier trial over the Paris attacks, making it unclear where they would serve their sentences.
Most of the organizers who carried out the attacks in Paris and Brussels were European citizens. Their involvement exposed painful divisions in the continent’s largely secular societies, with many pointing the finger at governments for abandoning some of their citizens, and at security services for not doing more to prevent the violence.
Although the number of Islamist terrorist attacks across Europe has declined significantly compared to the 2015-2016 peak, the Belgian Terrorism Bureau assessed in a report last year that “the greatest threat still comes from individuals driven by jihadist Islamist rhetoric.” ” It added: “The ideology of the Islamic State, and to a lesser extent that of Al Qaeda, remains a source of inspiration.”