Belgium launches biggest criminal trial in its history after 2016 terror attacks
Six and a half years after terrorist attacks that left a legacy of death, injury and shock, Belgium is launching the biggest criminal trial in its history.
Ten people will face charges relating to the murder of 32 people in March 2016, when bombs exploded at Brussels Airport and then on a metro train that was passing through the city’s European quarter.
It was the deadliest attack on Belgium since the end of the Second World War and led to vigils, protests, border checks, parliamentary inquiries and even the partial evacuation of the nation’s nuclear power stations.
The prime suspect in the trial will be Salah Abdeslam, who has already been convicted at a trial in France for his part in terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, which killed 130 people. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, without parole.
Nine of the defendants will be present in court. A tenth, Oussama Atar, is being tried in his absence, although it is believed that he may have been killed in Syria.
Abdeslam is one of five defendants who were convicted by the French courts, but who now face further punishment on behalf of the Belgian authorities. They are all alleged to have been involved in both sets of attacks, operating on behalf of Islamic State.
Read more:
Brussels terror – How the attacks unfolded
Belgium terror suspect ‘killed officer hours after making unhinged remarks at police station’
The jury will be told that a “terrorist cell” based in Brussels was actually planning to carry out a more ambitious series of coordinated attacks at the European Football Championship tournament in France, later in 2016.
However, it will be alleged, they changed their plans following the arrest of Abdeslam on 18 March after a police operation in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek.
Four days later, members of the cell attacked Brussels instead, and the murders began at the airport, it will be claimed.
CCTV footage is said to show three men pushing three trolleys through the departure terminal shortly before the explosions. The prosecution will allege that each man was carrying a bomb, but that only two of them were detonated by suicide attackers.
A view of the courtroom prior to the selection of the jury at the Justitia building in Brussels
The third man, they will claim, was Mohamed Abrini, who was widely identified as “the man in the hat” in a CCTV image released by police after the attacks. The jury will be told that he has been friends with Abdeslam since childhood and that he, too, was previously convicted by the court in France.
The airport was evacuated amid scenes of chaos and fear. But just an hour and a quarter after the airport explosions, another device was detonated in the middle carriage of a train at Maelbeek metro station, not far from the headquarters of the European Commission.
As well as the 32 people who were killed by the attacks, three terrorists also died. More than 300 people were injured, 62 of them critically. Earlier this year, a young Belgian woman, who had been in the airport at the time of the attack, decided to be euthanised because of the “intolerable psychological” strain it had placed on her life.
Security forces patrol the area surrounding the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels in March 2016 following a terror attack
Charles Michel, then the Belgian prime minister and now the president of the European Council, described the attack as “blind, violent and cowardly”.
The trial will be held in the former NATO headquarter building in Brussels. Millions of pounds have been spent on creating facilities capable of hosting such a high-profile trial, although its start was delayed after objections about the secure “glass box” that would house the defendants.
Victims and their families have long complained that it has taken too long for them to see justice being played out and that attention has been placed on the perpetrators and not on the victims.
Belgian authorities have claimed that the process of bringing the defendants to court has been extremely complex, both legally and logistically, and that delivering justice in such cases can take years.
Around 1,000 people were summoned as possible candidates to be either jurors or understudies. That process is now complete, and the trial will start. It is expected to stretch well into 2023, and cost around £30m. But Belgium hopes that it will eventually deliver a sense of closure and justice, after so many years of waiting.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Pic: AP
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
Read more:
No 10 indicates Netanyahu would be arrested
‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
World
Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Putin’s warning to the West
Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine
He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Read more from Sky News:
What are storm shadow missiles?
How bionic limps are helping Ukrainian troops
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports8 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway