Belgian Court Sentences 8 over Brussels Terror Attack

The sentencing ended the country's largest-ever criminal trial © JOHN THYS / POOL/AFP
The sentencing ended the country's largest-ever criminal trial © JOHN THYS / POOL/AFP
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Belgian Court Sentences 8 over Brussels Terror Attack

The sentencing ended the country's largest-ever criminal trial © JOHN THYS / POOL/AFP
The sentencing ended the country's largest-ever criminal trial © JOHN THYS / POOL/AFP

A Belgian court on Friday handed out sentences ranging up to life in prison to eight men for the 2016 militant bombings in Brussels, ending the country's largest-ever criminal trial.

The suicide bombings on March 22, 2016 at Brussels' main airport and on the metro system killed 32 people and were claimed by ISIS.

French citizen Salah Abdeslam and Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini -- already sentenced to life in jail by France for a 2015 massacre in Paris -- were the highest-profile of six culprits found guilty of murder in July.

Abrini, who was one of the designated bombers but decided not to blow himself up at the last moment, was given a 30-year jail term.

The court ruled not to give Abdeslam an additional term after he was sentenced in Belgium to 20 years in 2018 over a shootout.

The bombings -- near the headquarters of both NATO and the EU -- were part of a wave of attacks claimed by ISIS in Europe.

Hundreds of travellers and transport staff were maimed and, seven years on many victims, relatives and rescuers remain traumatized by the biggest peacetime attack in Belgium.

Authorities later raised the official death toll from the attacks to 35, after finding a link between the trauma suffered and the later deaths of three more people.

Dozens of wounded survivors and bereaved relatives gave emotional testimony during the months of hearings.

The trial, which started at the end of last year, was held under tight security at the converted former headquarters of the NATO military alliance.

Abdeslam, who turned 34 on Friday, was the sole surviving perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attack that killed 130 people.

He had fled to Brussels after taking part in the Paris attacks and holed up for four months in an apartment hosting members of the local cell.

He was arrested several days before the Brussels bombings took place, but the jury decided he was one of the co-authors of the attack.

A Belgian court turned down a request from the convict to stay in the country to carry out his sentence and he should eventually return to France to serve it.

Abrini was found guilty of being in one of the teams of suicide bombers who targeted Brussels' airport and a metro station.

He testified that he had decided at the last minute not to detonate his explosive at the airport -- as did another defendant, Osama Krayem, a Swede of Syrian descent.

Krayem was handed a life sentence, along with Bilal El Makhoukhi and Oussama Atar.

Atar, a senior commander in ISIS group who headed the militant cell, was tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017.

Herve Bayingana Muhirwa, found guilty of "participating in the activities of a terrorist group", was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Tunisian Sofien Ayari, also convicted on that lesser charge, was like Abdeslam not handed additional jail time as the court said sentences in previous cases were sufficient.

The court ruled not to strip any of the convicts of their Belgian nationalities.



Iranian President Arrives in Moscow for Treaty Signing with Putin

In this handout picture taken on January 16, 2025 and released by press service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a meeting with Tajik President in Dushanbe. (Handout / Press Service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan / AFP)
In this handout picture taken on January 16, 2025 and released by press service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a meeting with Tajik President in Dushanbe. (Handout / Press Service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan / AFP)
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Iranian President Arrives in Moscow for Treaty Signing with Putin

In this handout picture taken on January 16, 2025 and released by press service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a meeting with Tajik President in Dushanbe. (Handout / Press Service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan / AFP)
In this handout picture taken on January 16, 2025 and released by press service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a meeting with Tajik President in Dushanbe. (Handout / Press Service of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan / AFP)

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the signing of a strategic partnership treaty between the two countries, Russia's TASS state news agency reported.

Pezekshian, on his first Kremlin visit since winning the presidency last July after the death in a helicopter crash of his predecessor, is due to hold talks with Putin focusing on bilateral ties and international issues before signing the treaty.

Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other countries hostile towards the US, such as North Korea, since the start of the Ukraine war, and has strategic pacts with Pyongyang and close ally Belarus, as well as a strategic partnership agreement with China.

The 20-year Russia-Iran agreement, which will include provisions for closer defense cooperation, is likely to worry the West which sees both countries as malign influences on the world stage.

Moscow and Tehran say their increasingly close ties are not directed against other countries.

Russia has made extensive use of Iranian drones during the war in Ukraine and the United States accused Tehran in September of delivering close-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Tehran denies supplying drones or missiles.

The Kremlin has declined to confirm it has received Iranian missiles, but has acknowledged that its cooperation with Iran includes "the most sensitive areas".

Putin met Pezekshian on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October and on the sidelines of a cultural forum in Turkmenistan the same month.

Pezekshian is accompanied to Moscow by his oil minister and Western sanctions on the sector are likely to be discussed.