In Belgium, the trial of the March 2016 attacks in Brussels opened without Salah Abdeslam.
The man who was sentenced to life imprisonment in France for the attacks of November 13, 2015, refused on Monday to appear in Brussels at the trial of the attacks committed in March 2016 in the Belgian capital by the same jihadist cell.
The 32-year-old French jihadist, who is one of ten defendants in the trial, was taken from his cell when, according to his lawyers, he was not planning to appear at this procedural hearing.
For the holding of this trial of unprecedented scale with 960 civil parties identified by the federal prosecutor's office where ten accused must appear, including the 32-year-old French jihadist to answer for assassinations, or attempted assassinations, committed in a terrorist context , the Assize Court had to leave the Brussels courthouse to move to the former NATO premises, far from the city centre.
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While the proceedings are due to begin on the merits in October, the defense lawyers denounced during a preliminary hearing on Monday "major problems", including the fact that the defendants will be placed in individual boxes, completely glazed, preventing direct communication with their advocates.
Boxes compared to "cages" according to defense lawyers.
The latter cited as an example the special assize court in Paris, where the accused were seated in a collective, semi-open space.
Mohamed Abrini's lawyer (“the man in the hat” who had abandoned his trolley of explosives at the airport before fleeing) expressed his “shame”, his “deep disgust”.
A few minutes after the opening of the hearing, the nine defendants who must appear were all taken from prison (a tenth, presumed dead in Syria, is tried in absentia).
But several immediately criticized these boxes after appearing in court.
"We're like dogs here," said Tunisian Sofien Ayari, an accomplice in Abdeslam's escape, banging his fist on the wall of his box.
“Most of the defendants do not want to appear”
While he had initially expressed the wish to stay, Salah Abdeslam, thin beard and blue and white striped polo shirt, changed his mind when he saw that Mohamed Abrini, Sofien Ayari and other co-defendants were being escorted out of their box.
"I know it's not your decision, these boxes", but because of this "the trial begins unfairly".
And to add: "Most of the accused do not want to appear, I too will join them" in the cells of the justice building, he added.
Only three defendants agreed to stay.
This question of the boxes should be decided by the president of the court, Laurence Massart at the end of these preliminary hearings.
However, the federal prosecutor's office should defend the installation of such structures, in its view justified for security reasons.
This assize trial, which is to judge the alleged perpetrators of the attacks at Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek metro station, in the Belgian capital, should last between eight to ten months.
These suicide operations committed an hour apart had left 32 dead (apart from the suicide bombers) and 340 injured and had intervened only four days after the arrest, in Molenbeek, of Salah Abdeslam who has just been sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment. in France for the attacks of November 13, 2015.
