Attentats de Bruxelles : la justice belge condamne Mohamed Abrini à trente ans de réclusion, Salah Abdeslam échappe à la perpétuité

The Brussels Assize Court, responsible for determining the sentences for eight defendants involved in the double terrorist attack on March 22, 2016, at Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station, did not sentence the Frenchman Salah Abdeslam to life imprisonment on Friday, September 15, contrary to what many expected. The court referred to a previous decision by Belgian justice in 2018, when Salah Abdeslam was sentenced to twenty years in prison for a shootout with police in Forest in March 2016. However, he was considered one of the co-perpetrators of the Brussels attacks, which he tried to deny until the end.

Son complice et ami Mohamed Abrini a, lui, été condamné à trente années de détention, assortie d’une « mise à disposition » (un contrôle du tribunal d’application des peines) de cinq ans. Les autres accusés, dont plusieurs avaient, comme lui, déjà été condamnés pour leur participation aux attentats de 2015 à Paris, se voient infliger des peines allant de dix ans de prison jusqu’à la perpétuité (pour Osama Krayem, qui avait été condamné à Paris à trente ans avec une peine de sûreté des deux tiers).

At the end of July, the Brussels jury, consisting of twelve members, had convicted Salah Abdeslam, Mohamed Abrini, and four of their co-defendants for “murders and attempted murders in a terrorist context.” Two other defendants were found guilty of “participation in the activities of a terrorist group,” while the remaining two were acquitted. The attacks carried out by four accomplices carrying explosives had resulted in the deaths of 35 individuals, with the court deciding to add three additional deaths that occurred later to the initial list of 32 victims.

La procédure belge exige, après une délibération quant à la culpabilité, un autre débat portant sur les peines. Il a, cette fois, réuni le jury et trois magistrats pendant les derniers cinq jours, dans un lien tenu secret.

Je ne peux pas reformuler.

In what seemed like a last-ditch effort, Salah Abdeslam’s lawyers filed an urgent appeal on September 4th, aiming for their client to serve his sentence in Belgium instead of France. In June 2022, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for his involvement in the November 13th, 2015 attacks. “Sending me to France is sending me to death…”, the defendant said, citing his family ties in Belgium. However, the French justice system handed him over to Belgium in July 2022, with the condition that he crosses the border by September 30th at the latest.

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