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.



Start of Biden’s Visit to Angola Overshadowed by Son’s Pardon

US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One as he departs for Luanda, Angola, from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One as he departs for Luanda, Angola, from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)
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Start of Biden’s Visit to Angola Overshadowed by Son’s Pardon

US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One as he departs for Luanda, Angola, from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One as he departs for Luanda, Angola, from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, December 1, 2024. (Reuters)

US President Joe Biden landed in Angola on Monday for a visit focused on a US-backed railway project and on the legacy of slavery, but his decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden threatened to overshadow the official agenda.

The visit fulfills a promise to visit Sub-Saharan Africa during his presidency and aims to bolster the Lobito Corridor project, which links resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean.

At stake are vast supplies of minerals like copper and cobalt, which are found in Congo and are a key component of batteries and other electronics. China is the top player in Congo, which has become an increasing concern to Washington.

China signed an agreement with Tanzania and Zambia in September to revive a rival railway line to Africa's eastern coast.

"It's going to create incredible economic opportunities here on the continent," Biden's national security spokesperson John Kirby said, speaking about the Lobito Corridor during a briefing to reporters on Air Force One during the flight to Luanda.

He said Biden would unveil additional commitments to the project during his visit, as well as to health, climate and clean energy programs.

However, reporters on the flight had more questions about the Hunter Biden pardon than they did about investment in Africa. The president's spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre responded to them mostly by repeating Joe Biden's own statement on the issue.

The president, whose term in office finishes in January, flew out of Washington shortly after pardoning his son, who had pleaded guilty to tax violations and been convicted on firearms-related charges.

Biden himself did not answer reporters' questions on the pardon during a brief refueling stop in the small island nation of Cape Verde, off the coast of West Africa, earlier on Monday.

During his two-day visit to Angola, Biden is scheduled to meet with President Joao Lourenco and the Zambian leader President Hakainde Hichilema, and to tour the national slavery museum and various facilities in Lobito.

Partly funded by a US loan, the Lobito Corridor would make it faster and easier to export critical minerals towards the United States, which has been widely seen as a way to divert some of those resources from China.

"There is no Cold War on the continent. We're not asking countries to choose between us and Russia and China," Kirby said.

"We're simply looking for reliable, sustainable, verifiable investment opportunities that the people of Angola and the people of the continent can rely on, because too many countries have relied on spotty investment opportunities and are now racked by debt," he said.

The Lobito project is backed by global commodities trader Trafigura, Portuguese construction group Mota-Engil and railway operator Vecturis. The US Development Finance Corporation has provided a $550 million loan to refurbish the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) rail network from Lobito to Congo.