Belgian court sentences terrorists behind 2016 Brussels bombings

(Patria) - A Belgian court on Friday handed down sentences ranging up to life imprisonment for eight men for the 2016 Brussels bombings, bringing to an end the country's largest criminal trial, AFP reported.

The suicide bombings on March 22, 2016, at Brussels' main airport and in the metro system killed 32 people, and the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

French national Salah Abdeslam and Belgian national, of Moroccan origin, Mohamed Abrini, who were already sentenced to life in prison by France for the 2015 Paris attacks, were the most prominent of the six convicts found guilty of murder in July.

Abrini, who was one of the planned bombers but decided not to detonate himself at the last minute, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The court decided not to give Abdeslam an additional sentence after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium in 2018 for a shootout.

The attacks, near the headquarters of NATO and the EU, were part of a wave of attacks claimed by the Islamic State group in Europe.

Hundreds of passengers and transport staff were maimed, and seven years later, many victims, relatives, and rescuers remain traumatized. Authorities later raised the official death toll to 35 after discovering a link between the trauma suffered and the deaths of three more people later.

The trial, which began late last year, was held under heavy security in a repurposed former headquarters of the NATO military alliance.

Abdeslam, who turned 34 on Friday, was the sole surviving perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people. He fled to Brussels after participating in the Paris attacks and hid for four months in an apartment housing members of a local cell.

Abrini was found guilty of being part of one of the suicide bomber teams that targeted the Brussels airport and metro station. He testified that he decided at the last minute not to detonate his explosives at the airport, as did another defendant, Osama Krayem, a Swede of Syrian origin.

Krayem was sentenced to life in prison, along with Bilal El Makhoukhi and Oussama Atar. Atar, a senior commander of the Islamic State group who led the jihadist cell, was tried in absentia as he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017.

Herve Bayingana Muhirwa, who was found guilty of "participation in the activities of a terrorist group," was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The court decided not to strip any of the convicted individuals of their Belgian citizenship.