Salah Abdeslam and seven other men found guilty of involvement or complicity in the March 2016 attacks in Brussels will receive their prison sentences late Friday after a nine-month trial.
“The verdict on the sentences is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT) today,” the appeal court in the Belgian capital said.
Salah Abdeslam, who turns 34 this Friday, risks another life sentence if the jury follows the federal prosecutor’s orders.
The Frenchman who grew up in Brussels, the only surviving member of the commando that attacked Paris on November 13, 2015 (130 dead), was sentenced in France in June 2022 to an irreducible life sentence for his role in these attacks.
In the Brussels trial that opened in December 2022, the public prosecutor’s office demanded a total of six life sentences for all defendants who were found guilty of “murders in a terrorist context” at the end of July.
In addition to Abdeslam, those affected include Mohamed Abrini, “the man in the hat,” who accompanied the two jihadists who died in suicide attacks at Brussels-Zaventem airport, as well as Osama Krayem, Ali El Haddad Asufi, Bilal El Makhoukhi and Oussama Atar. .
The latter, the emir of the Islamic State terrorist militia and leader of the jihadist cell, was tried in absentia because he is believed to have died in Syria in 2017.
Two other defendants, Sofien Ayari and Hervé Bayingana Muhirwa, who are guilty of “participation in the activities of a terrorist group,” face a maximum prison sentence of ten years.
On the morning of March 22, 2016, two men blew themselves up in the departure hall of Zaventem airport and a third an hour later on a subway train at Maelbeek station. Results: 32 dead and hundreds injured.
However, the jury counted 35 deaths and estimated that three deaths that occurred later were directly related to the explosions.
Salah Abdeslam denies his involvement, saying he was in prison on the day of the events. He was arrested on March 18, 2016 in Molenbeek.
Nevertheless, he was considered an accomplice because he took part in the everyday life of the members of the cell who had retreated to Brussels after the Paris attacks and provided “indispensable help” in these suicide attacks, the court ruled.
The prosecution was the subject of intense controversy with the defense and in this trial also requested the deprivation of Belgian nationality in five cases: for Atar, Abrini and two other Belgian-Moroccans, and for the Belgian-Rwandan Hervé Bayingana Muhirwa.