Another indictment for 22 March attacks

Another indictment for 22 March attacks

Another man has been indicted in connection with the attacks of 22 March 2016 in Brussels Airport and Maalbeek metro station in the capital. Sofien Ayari was sentenced last month to 20 years in prison, along with confederate Salah Abdeslam, for his part in a gunfight with police in Molenbeek shortly before the attacks.

Like Abdeslam, who is suspected of being involved in the planning and organisation of the terror attacks in Paris the previous November, Ayari is accused to talking part in the planning of the March attacks in Brussels, in which suicide bombers exploded bombs in the departures hall of the airport and an hour later in a metro train. 32 people died, and 350 were injured.

Abdeslam has not been formally indicted yet for the Brussels attacks, although he is due to be extradited to Paris in connection with the 2015 attacks there, where he is thought to have been equipped wit ha suicide bomb which he failed to detonate.

His indictment here will follow soon, the public prosecutor said. Meanwhile Ayari bring to ten the number of people indicted for the March attacks. Among them Mohamed Abrini, the so-called Man in the Hat, who also came equipped with a suicide bomb but instead decided to leave it behind and walk back into Brussels, where he was later arrested.

Alan Hope
The Brussels Times


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