Even if he gave up blowing himself up, he “actively participated” in the preparation of the attacks: the prosecution asked Tuesday to condemn Mohamed Abrini as a co-perpetrator of the suicide attacks which left 32 dead and hundreds injured in March 2016 in Brussels.
Nine men have appeared in this trial since December, including Mohamed Abrini and his childhood friend Salah Abdeslam. A tenth, Osama Atar, is tried in his absence because he is presumed dead in Syria.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors began their indictment by addressing the cases of Atar and Abrini. They asked the Brussels Assize Court to condemn these two Belgian-Moroccans as “co-authors” of the attacks of March 22, 2016.
As in the attacks of November 13, 2015 in France, perpetrated by the same jihadist cell, Atar was “the leader” who piloted the group from Syria, while Abrini was “an active member of the first hour”, they explained, being particularly scathing with regard to the latter.
“He is intimately linked to the fabrication of the TATP and to the discussions on the targets. Without his assistance the crime could not have been committed,” said federal prosecutor Bernard Michel of Abrini.
The 38-year-old from Brussels has been described as a staunch follower of radical Islam, author of writings in which he presented the attacks as “the punishment of Allah” after the international coalition’s bombardments on Iraq and Syria .
On the morning of March 22, two men blew themselves up at Brussels-Zaventem international airport, and a third an hour later, during rush hour, in a metro station in the European district of the Belgian capital.
These attacks, like those of November 13 (130 dead), had been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
In the Belgian file, Abrini is known as “the man with the hat”, filmed by Zaventem CCTV pushing a luggage cart, with the two suicide bombers at the airport.
“Cowardly or by reflex of survival, he gave up blowing himself up, but he did not give up the attacks”, continued Bernard Michel. “When he gets into the taxi with the others (that morning) he knows that the operation can only result in deaths,” added the prosecutor.
Judged for “assassinations in a terrorist context”, like eight of his co-defendants, Mohamed Abrini faces life imprisonment.
If convicted, his sentence would be in addition to that already pronounced in Paris in June 2022 for the attacks of November 13 (life with 22 years of safety).
Two days before the attacks that targeted the Bataclan in particular, he had accompanied the “death convoy” to the French capital.
A total of six of the ten defendants in the Brussels trial were already concerned by the November 13 river hearing completed in Paris in June 2022.
On the first day of the indictment, the prosecution set out to demonstrate the premeditated and “carefully” prepared nature of the attacks, to justify the qualification retained as “terrorist assassinations”.
Prosecutor Paule Somers noted that the three suicide bombers had detonated their explosives in crowded places “of international scope”, adding to the TATP “multiple nails and pieces of metal”.
“Everything was thought out, weighed. The objective was to make the maximum number of victims”, she argued.
The magistrate also indicated that she would ask the court to retain 36 assassinations, and not 32, considering that “the causal link is established” between the attacks and the death for four other people.
Among these people is Shanti De Corte, present in Zaventem on March 22 and left traumatized by what she witnessed. In 2022, this 23-year-old woman had recourse to euthanasia for unbearable mental suffering.
After the five days of indictment – ??which must address the case of Salah Abdeslam on Thursday – the popular jury will hear the pleadings in June, from the civil parties and then from the defence.
The prosecution will then decide on the penalties requested. This step is expected for September, after the verdict on guilt returned by the jury in July.
30/05/2023 18:04:05 – Bruxelles (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
