Belgium launches biggest criminal trial in its history after 2016 terror attacks

Published

3 years ago

December 5, 2022

admin

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.

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.

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.

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.

World

Israel launches ground assault on central Gazan city, says charity

Published

1 hour ago

July 21, 2025

admin

Israel launches ground assault on central Gazan city, says charity

Medical aid has been suspended to a city in central Gaza due to an Israeli ground assault there, a charity has said.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said the Israeli military had launched a ground invasion of the city of Deir al Balah this morning.

It added that thousands of displaced people are living in the area, including MAP staff, and the latest orders by Israel “directly endanger vital humanitarian and primary healthcare sites”.

It said the “forced displacement orders do not allow for the transport of lifesaving medical equipment or supplies” and this was “further obstructing efforts to provide emergency assistance”.

Steve Cutts, MAP’s interim CEO, said: “This latest forced displacement order is yet another attack on humanitarian operations and a deliberate attempt to sever the last remaining threads of Gaza’s health and aid system.

“MAP now has to suspend critical services we have been providing to the Palestinian population, including a primary health clinic that serves hundreds of civilians every day. With Israel’s systematic targeting of health and aid workers, no one is safe.

“Not only are we prevented from carrying out our lifesaving work to support Palestinians, we are also unable to protect our own teams.”

Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit three mosques and eight houses, Reuters news agency reported.

Israeli sources said the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had previously stayed out of Deir Al Balah because they suspect Hamas might be holding hostages there, Reuters added.

At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in Gaza are believed to still be alive.

‘People were simply trying to access food’

The UN food agency has accused Israel of using tanks, snipers and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid.

The World Food Programme (WFP) condemned the violence that erupted in northern Gaza as Palestinians tried to reach a convoy of trucks carrying food.

Gaza’s health ministry said at least 80 people were killed in the incident.

The Israeli military said it fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat” – and questioned the number of those killed as reported by the Palestinians.

The WFP statement said the incident resulted in the loss of “countless lives” – and how the crowd surrounding its convoy “came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire”.

“These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,” it added.

Earlier, the WFP said that shortly after entering Gaza, a convoy of 25 trucks carrying food aid encountered “massive crowds of hungry civilians” who then came under gunfire.

“WFP reiterates that any violence involving civilians seeking humanitarian aid is completely unacceptable,” it said.

UNRWA, the UN refugee agency dedicated to Palestinians, said in a social media post it was receiving messages from Gaza warning of starvation, including from its own staff, as food prices have increased 40-fold.

“Meanwhile, just outside Gaza, stockpiled in warehouses UNRWA has enough food for the entire population for over three months. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale,” it said.

In Khan Younis earlier on Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least five people in a tent, including a man, his wife, and their two children, medics said.

Israel is yet to comment on the incidents.

Meanwhile, Pope Leo warned against the “indiscriminate use of force” and the “forced mass displacement” of people in Gaza in a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to health officials.

World

At least 16 dead after plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh

Published

4 hours ago

July 21, 2025

admin

At least 16 dead after plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh

At least 16 people have died after a Bangladesh air force plane crashed into a college campus, according to an official.

The aircraft crashed into the campus of Milestone School and College in Uttara, in the northern area of the capital Dhaka, where students were taking tests or attending regular classes.

The Bangladesh military’s public relations department added that the aircraft was an F-7 BGI, and had taken off at 1.06pm local time before crashing shortly after.

Video shows fire and smoke rising from the crash site, with hundreds looking on.

English language news outlet The Daily Star reported that more than 100 were injured based on data from various hospitals.

Bengali-language daily newspaper Prothom Alo said that most of the injured were students with burn injuries.

Citing the duty officer at the fire service control room, Prothom Alo also reported that the plane had crashed on the roof of the college canteen.

Rafiqa Taha, a 16-year-old student at the school who was not present at the time of the crash, told the Associated Press that the school has around 2,000 students.

“I was terrified watching videos on TV,” she added. “My God! It’s my school.”

World

30,000 trapped inside Syria’s besieged city despite ceasefire – as humanitarian crisis unfolds

Published

13 hours ago

July 21, 2025

admin

30,000 trapped inside Syria's besieged city despite ceasefire - as humanitarian crisis unfolds

The main road entering the besieged Syrian city of Sweida from the West has changed dramatically over twelve hours.

A bulldozer, parked on the side of the road, has been used to create several berms to form a sand barrier around 25km (16 miles) from the city centre.

Dozens of Syrian security forces were standing in lines in front of the barricades when we arrived, and there were forces further up the road stopping vehicles from going any further.

The Arab tribal fighters we’d seen fighting furiously inside the city the day before were now all camped alongside the road. Some were sleeping on the back of their pick-ups.

“We’re not giving up,” one shouted to us as we walked towards the checkpoint.

The ceasefire agreement between Druze leaders who’re bunkered down inside the city and the Bedoins – and the tribal fighters who’d flock to join them – has frustrated some.

Some of them, waiting with guns slung over their backs, are itching to return to battle. But for now, tribal leaders have instructed them to hold fire.

How long that will last is probably key to Syria’s future and whether it can be a peaceful one.

Khalaf al Modhi, the head of a group of tribes called United Tribes, told the group of fighters: “We are not against the Druze. We are not here to kill the Druze.”

But he spent many minutes castigating the senior Druze cleric inside Sweida whom many of the tribes see as the agitator behind the violent clashes.

Hikmat Al Hijiri is head of a Druze faction that is deeply suspicious of the new government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa and is resisting ceding power to Damascus.

The retreat of the Arab tribes from the city centre means the Druze militia under Hijiri’s control are now the ones deciding who goes in or out of the city.

About 30,000 mostly Druze people are thought to be trapped inside the city and surrounding towns, with no electricity, little internet and dwindling supplies of food and water.

The humanitarian situation is dramatically worsening by the day. But at the time of writing, there were still no agreed safe corridors to bring out those pinned inside.

On top of this, there are nearly 130,000 people displaced and forced out of their homes because of the fighting, according to UN estimates.

Maintaining the ceasefire is key to ensuring solutions are found to help those suffering, and quickly. It’s also the most serious challenge facing the new Syrian leader and his interim government.

The level of distrust between the Hijiri-led Druze faction and the new government is strong and deep. So much so that the Druze leaders have refused to accept truckloads of aid organised by any of the government outlets.

The new Syrian leader has struggled to convince the country’s minorities that their safety under his leadership is assured.

Druze civilians and human rights activists reported mass killings and executions of Druze by government troops who were sent in last week to quell the latest clashes between the Druze and Arab Bedoins who have been at odds for many years.

Government forces pulled out of the city only after Israel unleashed a spate of airstrikes, saying they were defending the Druze. The bombings killed hundreds of Syrian troops.

But with the withdrawal of the government troops, the Arab Bedoin population said the city’s Druze militia embarked on a string of revenge atrocities.

That in turn led to thousands of tribal fighters massing from around the country to defend their Arab brethren.

When we were inside the city, we saw multiple corpses lying on the streets, and many appeared to have been killed with a shot to the head.

Homes and businesses are still burning after mass pillaging as fighters retreated.

And now, there is a growing humanitarian disaster unfolding.

Additional reporting by camera operator Garwen McLuckie, specialist producer Chris Cunningham, as well as Syrian producers Mahmoud Mossa and Ahmed Rahhal.