A court in Brussels has convicted six men of murder and two others on terrorism charges for the 2016 jihadist bombings in the capital that killed 35 people, concluding Belgium’s largest-ever criminal trial.
French citizen Salah Abdeslam and Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini, already sentenced to life in jail by France for the 2015 Paris attacks, were among six found guilty of "murder linked to terrorism" on Tuesday.
They and two others of the ten defendants on trial were also convicted of participating in the activities of a terrorism organisation. Two men were acquitted.
Abdeslam and Abrini face life sentences in Belgium, with sentencing expected in September, after the court’s summer recess.
Death count revised upwards
The suicide attacks on 22 March 2016 at Brussels' main airport and on the Maalbeek/Maelbeek metro station were claimed by the Islamic State armed group.
Hundreds of travellers and transport staff were injured, and many victims, relatives and rescuers remain traumatised.
The court on Tuesday formally raised the death toll from the attacks from 32 to 35, after finding a link between the deaths of three more people subsequently and the trauma they suffered.
The seven-month trial, which started at the end of last year, was held under tight security at the converted former headquarters of the NATO military alliance.
Dozens of wounded survivors and bereaved relatives gave often emotional testimony during the months of hearings.
Unlike the French trial, which concluded last year with a decision by a panel of judges, the Brussels case was settled by a jury.
Some convicted, some acquitted
After deliberating for two weeks, the 12 jury members rejected Abdeslam’s claim not to have been involved in the planning of the attacks.
He was arrested by Belgian police four days before the attacks, having fled to Brussels after becoming the only surviving perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attack that killed 130 people.
He spent four months in an apartment with members of the Belgium-based Islamic State cell that prosecutors believe organized and carried out the Brussels attacks.
Abrini was found guilty of being 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 blow himself up, as did Osama Krayem, who was also found guilty of murder, along with defendants Ali El Haddad Asufi and Bilal El Makhoukhi.
Osama Atar, who is believed to have been killed in an air strike in Syria, was convicted in absentia of masterminding the attacks.
Abdeslam, Abrini, Krayem and Atar were already convicted in France for the November 2015 attacks.
Two other defendants –Sofien Ayari and Herve Bayingana Muhirwa – were acquitted of murder in Brussels, but found guilty of participating in a terrorist group.
Brothers Smail and Ibrahim Farisi were acquitted of the charges they faced.
(with newswires)
