As the Brussels terror trial continued on Monday, the defence announced plans to file a complaint about security measures for the accused, while the prosecution presented allegedly incriminating evidence in the form of a flash drive.
Vincent Lurquin, who is defending suspect Hervé Bayingana Muhirwa, said the seven defence teams would send a summons on Wednesday to Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne concerning security measures surrounding the transfer of their clients from prison to the Justitia building, where the trial is being held.
The security measures have been the subject of debate since the start of the trial of the March 2016 Brussels attacks, which left 32 people dead. In particular, Lurquin denounced systematic strip searches, broadcasting of “thunderous” music and the blinding of the defendants with the aim, he charged, of “disorienting” them.
'We have to make the conditions humanly acceptable'
On several occasions last week and again on Monday morning, the detained defendants left the courtroom in protest. “We need high security but not humiliation,” Lurquin told reporters during a break in the federal prosecutors’ reading of the indictment.
“Everyone agrees with security measures, but everyone also agrees that they (the defendants) must speak," the attorney said. "They want to talk but not under these conditions. We have to make the conditions humanly acceptable, dignified, as we have always done and in accordance with the law.”
“The court hears us. The prosecutor hears us, but the minister does not hear us,” the lawyer lamented. As a result, the defence teams will send a summons to Van Quickenborne on Wednesday asking him to adapt the security measures.
If there is no response, a summary procedure will be initiated, which could lead to a suspension of the proceedings.
Suspicious flash drive
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors referred on Monday to the discovery of a suspicious flash drive at the home of suspect Ali El Haddad Asufi.
It contained several farewell messages recorded by Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at the airport on 22 March 2016.
This flash drive had escaped the investigators' notice when they first searched Ali El Haddad Asufi’s home on 24 March 2016. It was during a second search that they were able to lay their hands on it.
“Ali El Haddad Asufi had taken care to stick onto it an RCCU (Regional Computer Crime Unit) label that was previously placed on another flash drive that was seized and then returned, giving the impression that it had already been analysed by this service,” the prosecution stated in its indictment.
Flash drive contained farewell messages
The flash drive had been connected to a computer found at Rue du Dries and another one, found at Rue Max Roos. It contained six files created on 21 March 2016, the day before the attacks.
These were farewell messages, recorded by Ibrahim El Bakraoui, to various people, but he did not mention their names.
“We are not going to name names like that, we never know where this audio is going to end up," he says in his message, but the brother, Inch'Allah, who is going to make you listen to it, normally, he knows to whom he should play it.”
