The start, in Brussels, of the trial of the attacks of March 2016 is decidedly very difficult… unless it is a reflection of the dysfunctions of the Belgian judicial system, or even of the latent conflict between magistrates and their ministry. Friday, September 23, Laurence Massart, the president of the Brussels Assize Court was, in any case, forced to announce the postponement to an indefinite date of the start of this trial, however qualified as historic.
The reason: an urgent letter had been sent to him the day before by the Ministry of Justice and informed him that it would be impossible to carry out before October 10, the date scheduled for the selection of the popular jury, the dismantling of the nine individual boxes. , closed and glazed, in which Salah Abdeslam and his eight co-defendants were to be locked up, involved to varying degrees in the attacks at Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek metro, which caused the death of 32 people – apart from suicide bombers. A tenth defendant, Osama Atar, was presumably killed in Syria in 2017 but, due to lack of proof of his death, he will be tried in absentia.
Also listen November 13 trial: Salah Abdeslam’s about-face
Motion of the defendants
The president, acceding to the requests of the defense lawyers, who had invoked the impossibility of communicating correctly with their clients, had demanded, on Friday, September 16, the replacement of the individual cells by a single semi-open box equipped with a “glazed strip”. In his judgment, Mr.me Massart had put forward the right to a fair trial provided for by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. And she had mentioned the example of the recent trial in Paris, in which the perpetrators of the attacks of November 13, 2015 were judged, as “an acceptable solution, ensuring a balance between the various legal obligations and security requirements”. In the French capital, the defendants were installed side by side, in a single space.
Even if she had declared, on Thursday, “Don’t panic, solutions will be found”, lhe president was forced the next day to indicate that the hearings would be postponed to an indefinite date. Perhaps at the beginning of November, in any case before the end of the year, promise the spokespersons for the Assize Court.
Some 370 witnesses will be called to appear and six hundred people will first have to be summoned to make up the jury of 12 effective members and 24 alternates. This considerable number is explained by the probable duration of the trial (six to eight months, at least), which is enough to frighten many citizens who will ask not to sit.
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