Two trials for a sprawling case. The Belgian justice in turn seized, from Tuesday April 19, the file of the jihadist attacks of November 13, 2015. While the special assize court of Paris judges for seven months 20 defendants, including the only survivor of the commandos, Salah Abdeslam, this tribunal must establish the responsibilities of 13 other men and one woman. They appear in Brussels for having provided assistance, even minimal, to the terrorists. Franceinfo answers four questions about this so-called “bis” trial, scheduled to last a month.
1Why organize a second trial in Belgium?
The attacks in France, claimed by the Islamic State group, were largely prepared from Belgian territory, where the jihadist cell had half a dozen hideouts. After the bloody outfit at the Stade de France, the terraces and the killing of the Parisian hall of the Bataclan, which left 130 dead and hundreds injured, the Belgian anti-terrorist justice very quickly opened an investigation, led by the judge of instruction Isabelle Panou. This trial in Brussels is the culmination of this.
The persons implicated in this procedure have been excluded from that investigated in France. Indeed, they are suspected of acts of less gravity than those judged at the moment by the special assize court of Paris. Twelve defendants also appear free in Brussels. The other two are judged by default because given for dead in Syria.
Most gravitated to the entourage of Salah Abdeslam and Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the Paris attacks, and the two El Bakraoui brothers, the cousins of the “mastermind” of the attacks, Oussama Atar, who blew themselves up in the metro and at Brussels airport on March 22, 2016. “We are located here in the nebula of the entourage of Abdeslam, Bakraoui, Mohamed Abrini, explain to World Michaël Dantinne, criminologist at the University of Liège. It’s a broth of culture, ideas, where everyone knows each other, even indirectly. The terrorist enterprise is based on a relational breeding ground of crossed loyalties, friendly and family ties, where one does not ‘balance’.
2Who are the people judged in Brussels?
Eleven men – including Youssef Bazarouj, presumed dead – must answer for “participation in the activities of a terrorist group”, which makes them incur up to five years in prison. One of them, Abid Aberkane, is on trial for having hidden Salah Abdeslam in the cellar of his mother’s home in Molenbeek, near Brussels, the last days before the arrest of the French jihadist, on March 18, 2016. A Another, Youssef El Ajmi, accompanied his friend Ibrahim El Bakraoui to the airport twice in the summer of 2015, first to Amsterdam-Schiphol and then, a month later, to Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle.
Were they aware of the terrorist projects or the Islamist radicalization of the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris and Brussels? This is what is at stake in this trial, echoing the questions that arise for some of the defendants in the Paris trial, described as “second knives”. According to the prosecution, Youssef El Ajmi could not ignore that Ibrahim El Bakraoui wanted at all costs to reach Syria from Turkish soil. The defense does not see it that way. “It was not marked on his forehead that he [Ibrahim El Bakraoui] was going to fight in Syria, how many Belgians knew at the time that the caliphate [de l’Etat islamique] had been proclaimed there?” opposes his lawyer, Michel Bouchat.
“Afterwards, driving a friend to the airport became participating in a terrorist group, it was easy to sue.”
Michel Bouchat, lawyer for one of the defendantsat AFP
Among the defendants is also Ibrahim Abrini, the brother of Mohamed Abrini, “theman in hat” attacks in Brussels, judged in Paris. He is being prosecuted for having removed compromising elements for the terrorist group – including a computer, recalls The world. Another suspect, considered by the prosecution to be the “leader” of this group, incurs up to fifteen years firm. This is the second defendant tried by default, the Belgian-Ivorian Sammy Djedou. He is said to have died in Syria, where he was among the senior leaders of the Islamic State.
Finally, two of the 14 defendants are accused of related offenses: one of them is tried for violations of the laws on weapons and explosives, and the other – the only woman in the case – for the provision of false papers to the members of the cell behind the attacks in Paris and Brussels. This is Meryem El Balghiti, suspected of having supported her husband Farid Kharkhach, tried in Paris, in the preparation and issuance of these false papers.
3How many civil parties have been constituted?
At this stage, seven people have joined the trial as civil parties, compared to more than 2,000 in the French procedure. Among them are the parents and a sister of Elif Dogan, a Liégeoise of Turkish origin killed at the age of 27 on the terrace of the bar Le Carillon, in Paris, on the evening of November 13, 2015. “In order not to revive too painful memories, they do not intend to come and testify in court”said their lawyer, Julie Henkinbrant.
4When should the decision be made?
The trial, which opens at 2 p.m. at the former NATO headquarters, renamed “Justitia”, is placed under high police protection. It must continue until May 20 at the rate of two or three days of hearing per week. Unless unforeseen, the court intends to render its judgment on June 30 at the latest, a few days after the verdict of the Paris trial, which is expected for June 24.
Belgian justice will not have finished with the case of the attacks since the trial of the Brussels attacks, which left 32 dead and more than 300 injured, is due to open next October at Justitia. Six of the 20 defendants in the trial in Paris will be tried there: Salah Abdeslam, Mohamed Abrini, Sofien Ayari, Osama Krayem, Oussama Atar (tried by default because presumed dead in Syria) and Ali El Haddad Asufi.