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.



Biden Says He Has Pardoned His Son, Hunter

US President Joe Biden (L) hugs his son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 24 July 2024. (EPA)
US President Joe Biden (L) hugs his son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 24 July 2024. (EPA)
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Biden Says He Has Pardoned His Son, Hunter

US President Joe Biden (L) hugs his son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 24 July 2024. (EPA)
US President Joe Biden (L) hugs his son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 24 July 2024. (EPA)

US President Joe Biden said on Sunday he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, a reversal after pledging to stay out of legal proceedings against the younger Biden who pleaded guilty to tax violations and was convicted on firearms-related charges.

"Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department's decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted," the president said in a statement.

The White House had said repeatedly that Biden would not pardon or commute sentences for Hunter, a recovering drug addict who became a target of Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump.

"No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son," Biden said in a statement released shortly before leaving for a trip to Africa.

The grant of clemency said Biden had granted "a full and unconditional" pardon to Hunter Biden for any offenses in a window from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024.

Hunter Biden faced sentencing for the false statements and gun convictions this month. In September he pleaded guilty to federal charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while spending lavishly on drugs, sex workers and luxury items. He was scheduled for sentencing in that case on Dec. 16.

"I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport," Hunter Biden said in a statement on Sunday, adding he had remained sober for more than five years.

"In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages ... I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering."

Republicans criticized the president's move.

"Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!" Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site, referring to those convicted for storming the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump claimed falsely that he had won the 2020 election.

"Joe Biden has lied from start to finish about his family's corrupt influence peddling activities," said Representative James Comer, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

The president, whose son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, said his opponents had sought to break Hunter with selective prosecution.

He said people were almost never brought to trial for felony charges for how they filled out a gun form, and said others who were late in paying taxes because of addiction but paid them back with interest and penalties, as his son had, typically received non-criminal resolutions to their cases.

"It is clear that Hunter was treated differently. The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election," Biden said. "In trying to break Hunter, they've tried to break me – and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough."

In August 2023, lawyers for Hunter Biden said prosecutors had reneged on a plea deal that would have resolved the tax and firearms charges. The president said in his statement on Sunday that the plea deal "would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter's cases."

Biden said he had made his decision to pardon over the weekend. The president, his wife, Jill Biden, and their family including Hunter, spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and returned to Washington on Saturday night.

"Here's the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further," Biden said.

"I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision."