Brussels attacks: one of the accused says he suffered violence from the Belgian police

One of the defendants in the trial of the 2016 attacks in Brussels complained on Thursday of having been "violated" by the police when he was extracted from prison, once again casting doubt on the participation of the suspects in this hearing.

The trial of the jihadist attacks which killed 32 people on March 22, 2016 has been disrupted since its opening on Monday by the drastic security conditions imposed on the defendants detained.

In total, seven defendants appear detained.

Two others are free and a tenth, presumed dead in Syria, is tried in absentia.

On Wednesday, this controversy led to the departure of five of them from the box, including the Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the commandos of November 13, 2015.

"Strangled" by the police?

Thursday morning when the hearing resumed, all the detained defendants had returned to the box, but the lawyer for one of them quickly asked to speak to denounce a new incident.

Jonathan De Taye, who defends Ali El Haddad Asufi, one of the alleged logisticians of the attacks, explained that his client had "lost consciousness" when he was extracted from his cell by the police.

He would have been "strangled" by one or more officers to whom he protested.

Asked by the president about his state of health, Ali El Haddad Asufi then got up painfully from his seat and confirmed that he was asking to be examined by a doctor.

“I have to see a doctor, my head is still spinning,” said the accused, a 38-year-old Belgian-Moroccan.

His lawyer mentioned a mark of strangulation "on the neck" which would be proof of police violence.

The president announced her intention to appoint a doctor and suspended the hearing less than ten minutes after the resumption.

VIDEO.

January 2015 attacks: “The legal story is ending, that of the victims will continue”

For the third day in a row, the hearing must be devoted Thursday to the reading of the indictment.

Less than half of this 450+ page document has been read at this point.

The suicide attacks in Brussels, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, were perpetrated by the jihadist cell already behind the attacks of November 13, 2015 (130 dead in Paris and Saint-Denis).

Five of the nine defendants appearing in Brussels – including Abdeslam and El Haddad Asufi – have already been convicted in the river trial which ended in June in Paris for the events of November 13.