Belgium has launched its biggest criminal trial with the prosecution of alleged jihadists accused of directing or aiding suicide bombings on the Brussels metro and airport that killed 32 people in 2016.
The prime suspect in the dock, Abdeslam Salah, 33, an electrical mechanic, confirmed his identity and occupation. Salah, who is French, was convicted in a separate trial in France for his role in attacks in Paris in 2015 that killed 130 people.
One of the nine defendants present, Osama Krayem, 30, refused to stand as the accused were presented to the high-security court, a purpose-built space in the disused former headquarters of Nato. A 10th suspect, Oussama Atar, 33, is believed to have been killed in Syria.
The hearing on Wednesday began selecting a jury from a poll of more than 1,000 citizens. The court was to choose 12 jurors and 24 potential replacements who would need to attend near-daily sessions during the months-long process. The main evidential hearings will begin on 5 December.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015 and the Brussels bombings on 22 March 2016. Investigators believe they were carried out by a Belgium-based cell that included Salah.
The group was planning further violence, allegedly including attacks during the Euro 2016 football tournament in France, but acted quickly after Salah was arrested on 18 March.
Four days later, two men blew themselves up in Brussels airport and another in a metro station near the EU headquarters in the city centre.
Alongside those killed, hundreds of travellers and transport staff were injured. Six years on, many survivors, relatives and rescuers say they remain traumatised.
Five of the nine defendants to appear in the dock in Belgium were convicted in the French trial, including Salah, who is serving a life sentence without parole in France and faces a further sentence in Belgium.
Hundreds of witnesses and survivors will testify in the coming months, some hopeful that telling the story of Belgium’s worst peacetime massacre will provide a measure of closure.
“I don’t really expect a lot of answers,” said Sandrine Couturier, who was on the Maelbeek metro platform when it was attacked. She plans to attend the trial to face the defendants. “I want to confront myself with what human beings are capable of doing. I have to accept that not everyone is good.”
Like many survivors of the attacks, Couturier says she has been experiencing memory loss and difficulty concentrating. Several have sought treatment for depression.
Sebastien Bellin, a former professional basketball player who was due to fly to New York on the morning of 22 March, lost the use of a leg in the attack. He said he felt no hatred towards the attackers: “It would suck the energy I need to rebuild myself.”
The trial had been scheduled to begin in October but there was controversy over the dock, in which the accused would have been held in individual glass boxes. The defendants’ areas were rebuilt as a single shared space.
