The defendants were found guilty of the crime of murder and attempted murder after the court located in Brussels confirmed their participation in the attack. The series of attacks claimed the lives of 32 people and injured more than 300. Two of the convicts, Salah Abdelslam and Mohamed Abrini, also participated in the attacks in Paris in 2015 for which they were sentenced to life imprisonment.
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“We have been waiting for this for seven years, seven years that weighed heavily on the victims,” said Jamila Adda, president of the ‘Life4Bruxelles’ association that brings together victims and survivors of the 2016 attacks, outside the capital court moments before the judges’ decision was revealed.
The verdict found the eight people guilty of participating in the planning, organization and materialization of the suicide attacks at the Zaventem airport and on the central line of the Brussels metro on March 22, 2016, although the final sentence that will determine the jail time of the convicts will be the result of a separate process.
Among the defendants is Salah Abdelslam, who was the sole survivor of the attackers who sowed terror at the Bataclan Theater in the French capital in November 2015, for which he is serving a life sentence in jail after he was arrested by Belgian police just four days before the attacks in Brussels.
The panel of judges also concluded that the motive of the convicted was merely ideological, in addition to confirming the attackers’ links with the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the wave of terrorist attacks in different European cities in the period between 2015 and 2017.
News in development…
