The Special Court of Assizes in Brussels has sentenced eight suspects in the 2016 terror attacks on the Belgian capital that left 32 people dead.
A suspected co-author of the attacks, Salah Abdeslam, who turned 34 on Friday, received 20 years in prison.
The only surviving member of the commandos who attacked Paris on 13 November 2015 killing 130 people, Abdeslam is a French citizen who grew up in Brussels. He was sentenced in June 2022 in France to life imprisonment for his part in the attacks.
In addition to Abdeslam, the defendants include Mohamed Abrini, the “man in the hat” who accompanied the two jihadists who died as suicide bombers at Brussels-Zaventem airport, as well as Osama Krayem, Ali El Haddad Asufi, Bilal El Makhoukhi and Oussama Atar.
The latter, an emir of the Islamic State group who headed the jihadist cell, was tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017.
