Belgium sentences 8 over Brussels airport, metro attack claimed by ISIS
A Belgian court on Friday handed out sentences ranging up to life in prison to eight men for the 2016 bombings in Brussels, ending the country’s largest-ever criminal trial.
The suicide bombings on March 22, 2016 at Brussels’ main airport and on the metro system killed 32 people and were claimed by ISIS.
French citizen Salah Abdeslam and Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini — already sentenced to life in jail by France for a 2015 massacre in Paris — were the highest-profile of six culprits found guilty of murder in July.
Abrini, who was one of the intended bombers but decided not to blow himself up at the last moment, was given a 30-year jail term.
The court ruled not to give Abdeslam an additional term after he was sentenced in Belgium to 20 years in 2018 over a shootout.
The attacks — near the headquarters of both NATO and the EU — were part of a wave of attacks claimed by ISIS in Europe.
Hundreds of travelers and transport staff were maimed and seven years on, many victims, relatives and rescuers remain traumatized.
Authorities later raised the official death toll from the attacks to 35, after finding a link between the trauma suffered and the deaths of three more people subsequently.
Dozens of wounded survivors and bereaved relatives gave emotional testimony during the months of hearings.
The trial, which started at the end of last year, was held under tight security at the converted former headquarters of the NATO military alliance.
Abdeslam, who turned 34 on Friday, was the sole surviving perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attack that killed 130 people.
He had fled to Brussels after taking part in the Paris attacks and holed up for four months in an apartment hosting members of the local cell.
A Belgian court turned down a request from the convict to stay in the country to carry out his sentence and he should eventually return to France to serve it.
Abrini was found guilty of being in one of the teams of suicide bombers who targeted Brussels’ airport and a metro station.
He testified that he decided at the last minute not to detonate his explosive at the airport — as did another defendant, Osama Krayem, a Swede of Syrian descent.
Krayem was handed a life sentence, along with Bilal El Makhoukhi and Oussama Atar.
Atar, a senior commander in ISIS who headed the extremist cell, was tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017.
Herve Bayingana Muhirwa, who was found guilty of “participating in the activities of a terrorist group,” was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The court ruled not to strip any of the convicts of their Belgian nationalities.
