For five months, the trial has been going on in earnest outside NATO’s old headquarters in northeast Brussels. Ten people – including one in absentia – are accused of involvement in the bombings that killed 32 people on March 22, 2016.
The intention then was that five perpetrators would detonate their suicide bombs at the Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek metro station. Three did so, while two others – Belgian Mohamed Abrini and Swedish Osama Krayem – repented at the last moment and are now among the defendants instead.
Initially, however, the terrorists did not have Brussels in their sights.
— The goal was the football European Championship 2016 in Paris. I don’t know how many, but it was about several places. It was primarily a question of fan zones or places where people gathered around big screens near the arenas, Abrini told the court on Tuesday, according to Belgian newspaper Le Soir.
Four of the accused in Brussels – Mohamed Abrini, Osama Krayem, Salah Abdeslam and Sofiane Ayari – in a drawing from the start of the trial in December 2022. File photo. Played video games
Abrini was arrested a few weeks after the crime, as was Krayem, and has explained how he panicked when the first explosion rocked Zaventem airport, where he had gone with two other perpetrators. He left his bombs and fled.
He likes to portray himself as a highly unwilling terrorist and claims that both he and Krayem played hidden roles in the face of the crime.
— It was surreal. Krayem and I were playing Playstation or watching TV, while in the next room bombs and other serious things were being prepared, Abrini said.
The friend Krayem is said to have told in police interrogation how he also changed his mind at the last moment, on his way to blow himself up in the subway.
During the trial, however, he remained silent the entire time and mostly exercised his right not to even have to be present in the courtroom.
“Die a Martyr”
That the terrorists chose to attack Brussels on March 22, 2016 instead of waiting until the European Championship in France has been mainly explained by the fear of getting caught, after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam on March 18. He was part of the same cell from the IS terrorist movement, but was wanted throughout Europe after the murder in Paris on November 13, 2015.
Abdeslam – a French citizen, but raised in Brussels – had repented in Paris and fled home, where, however, the leader of the terrorist cell preferred to send him on to the war in Syria.
— They didn’t want to take the risk that I would talk if I was caught. There are not many options in this kind of situation: either you die as a martyr or you return to Syria, Abdeslam said in the Belgian trial on Tuesday.
Flowers, candles and words of remembrance at the station concourse of the Maelbeek metro station in central Brussels after the terrorist attack on March 22, 2016. File photo. Done in June?
During Wednesday, several of the defendants justified their actions due to what they experienced during their war with IS in Syria.
— I see no difference between bombs falling from the sky and bombs in the subway, said Bilal El Makhoukhi, who is accused of helping the perpetrators and participating in the planning.
— March 22? If you take it out of context, it is a terrible crime that I would be the first to condemn. But if you put it in context, it is more complex, said Abdeslam.
The main defendants face life in prison – while several of them, including Abdeslam and Krayem, have already been sentenced to similar sentences in France for their involvement in the November crime. The trial is expected to last at least two more months.