On the fourth day of the Brussels trial of the terrorist attacks of March 22, 2016, a new incident interrupted the hearing for a long time and further slowed down the laborious start of this trial.
Since its opening, the trial of these jihadist attacks which killed 32 people on March 22, 2016 in the Belgian capital has been disrupted by the drastic security conditions imposed on the accused detainees. This Thursday, it was Ali El Haddad Asufi who was at the center of attention, again for the conditions of transfer from prison to court. He claimed to have been assaulted by the police responsible for supervising the transfers, to have been almost strangled and to have lost consciousness, reports our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet. The President of the Assize Court therefore suspended the session and requested an expertise by a forensic doctor.
After an interruption of almost two hours, the doctor testified to the presence of ” bruises and rashes on the neck of Ali El Haddad Asufi likely to confirm the assertions on the violence suffered. Despite the marks of blows, also seeming to attest that he was dragged to the ground, Ali El Haddad Asufi was deemed fit to appear, but the 38-year-old Belgian-Moroccan announced that he preferred to remain in a cell at the courthouse . All of his co-accused who appear in the box then asked to leave the hearing in solidarity. The Farisi brothers, who appear free, thus remained the only defendants in the room.
A trial amputated by an additional juror
The prosecutor then resumed the indictment, the reading of which had begun on Tuesday. Less than half could have been read with the accumulation of session incidents. The start is all the more laborious as a fourth juror has been missing since Thursday, victim of gastroenteritis. ” I hope it wasn’t contagious ” asserts the president of the assize court before reopening the debates.
The suicide attacks in Brussels, claimed by the Islamic State group, were perpetrated by the jihadist cell already behind the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis. Five of the nine defendants appearing in Brussels – including Abdeslam, Abrini and El Haddad Asufi – have already been convicted in the river trial which ended in June in Paris for the facts of the 13-November.
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(And with AFP)