Attacks in Brussels: Salah Abdeslam and nine other defendants referred to the Court of Assize

The Franco-Moroccan Salah Abdeslam and nine other men suspected of involvement in the jihadist attacks carried out on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, which left 32 dead, were returned on Friday, September 17, to the Assize Court in the Belgian capital, he announced the Federal Public Ministry. “Ten defendants (were) referred today to the Court of Assize by the Brussels Chamber of Prosecutions”, tweeted Eric Van Duyse, spokesman for the Federal Public Ministry. Six of those ten men are currently on trial in Paris for the November 13, 2015 attacks that killed 130 people, also claimed by the Islamic State group.

The upcoming trial in Brussels from September 2022 will involve Salah Abdeslam and five other jihadists currently on trial in Paris. This is the Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini, the “man in the hat” filmed on March 22 at Zaventem airport, the Tunisian Sofien Ayari, accomplice of Abdeslam’s flight (detained with him on March 18, 2016 in Brussels), by Swede of Syrian origin Osama Krayem, who backed down on March 22 after accompanying the suicide bomber to the subway.

Two other Belgian-Moroccans are also concerned, according to the Belgian federal prosecutor: Oussama Atar, suspected of the perpetrator (probably killed in Syria and tried in absentia in Paris) and Ali El Haddad Asufi, close friend of El Bakraoui’s brothers, two of the three “bomb men” of March 22. The last two defendants are the Brothers Smail and Ibrahim Farisi, suspected of having provided logistical support to the attackers. Federal Public Ministry, the last called to judge before the organization of the trial thus, it confirmed the decision handed down in the first instance in January by the chamber of the council of the court of Brussels.