The trial of the 2016 jihadist attacks in Brussels, which was to begin in mid-October, has been postponed for several weeks, the Belgian capital’s court of appeal announced on Friday.
In a letter to the President of the Assize Court, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that the new box for the accused of the attacks, requested by the court, could not be delivered on October 10, the date initially scheduled for the composition of the jury. This hearing is therefore “cancelled” as well as the one which was to mark the start of the debates on October 13, it was specified from the same source. “There is a question for the moment of a postponement of a few weeks”, declared to Luc Hennart, spokesman for the court of appeal.
32 dead and more than 340 injured
The Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne, questioned Friday morning by the Flemish public radio, had himself said to expect a postponement of a few weeks. “It’s more a matter of weeks than months,” he said. On the morning of March 22, 2016, two jihadists blew themselves up at Brussels-Zaventem airport, and a third a good hour later in the metro of the European capital. Balance sheet: 32 dead and more than 340 injured.
The investigation quickly established that the attackers came from the same jihadist cell already at the origin of the attacks of November 13, 2015 in France (130 dead in Paris and Saint-Denis). This trial concerns in particular the French jihadist Salah Abdeslam, sentenced this year to incompressible life imprisonment in France for the Parisian attacks.
Historical trial
A total of six of the ten accused in the trial (including Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini) were already concerned by the river hearing which ended at the end of June in Paris for the attacks of November 13.
This Brussels trial, presented as “historic” in Belgium – the largest ever organized before an assize court in this country – also concerns around a thousand civil parties, injured or relatives of victims claiming compensation for a harm. On January 16, the court ordered during a preliminary hearing the dismantling of the current box compartmentalized into individual glass cells, judging this device prejudicial to the rights of the defense due in particular to communication problems between the defendants and their lawyers.
