Lack of resources, under-dimensional intelligence services, insufficient coordination, a commission of inquiry had drawn up an edifying observation. The audience opens, Monday, in the Belgian capital.
by Jean-Pierre Stroobants (Brussels, correspondent)
A “century”, “unpublished” trial, “to understand”: the Belgian press was unanimous, on the eve of the trial which opens in Brussels, Monday, December 5, to underline the importance of audiences intended for Judge the nine alleged authors of the March 2016 attacks at Zaventem airport and at Maelbeek metro station. Among them, Salah Abdeslam, Mohamed Abrini, Osama Krayem, already sentenced to Paris for the attacks of November 13, 2015, but also some second -ranking figures, involved in various degrees in this double terrorist attack. Osama Atar will be judged in absence: this “man of the shadows”, presented as the sponsor of the attacks in Brussels would have been killed in Syria, in a strike from the international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) organization.
It was a little before 8 am on March 22, 2016, when an explosion sounded in the airport hall. Najim Laachraoui, one of the two suicide bomber, had explained to one of his relatives, in a communication analyzed later during a listening, that a “brother” had entrusted to him that “American, Russian and Russian passengers Jews “would be numerous that morning. An hour later, another detonation occurred in a metro train, in the heart of the European district.
Assessment: 32 dead of ten nationalities, 340 injured. An even greater catastrophe was very much avoided: the driver of the metro train, informed of what was going on at the airport and seized a feeling, she said to the newspaper La Libre Belgique, Hs a few seconds before restarting his convoy towards Maelbeek. He therefore did not meet, at the time of the explosion, the metro which was rolling in the opposite direction.
On the evening of March 22, the trauma was immense for a Belgium who then assisted, dumbfounded, the emergence of Islamist terrorism on its territory. Police and state security (intelligence) were on maximum alert since the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris. Criticized in France, but also in Belgium, for not having identified Salah Abdeslam as a suspect in terrorism and, beyond, not to have taken into account information that managed from foreign countries, Belgian services feared a new action IS. However, they could not warn it in time.
a political “piloting” lack
Before the publication of the conclusions of a parliamentary commission of inquiry, in 2017, the Minister of the Interior of the time, Jan Jambon, denied any “blunder”. Lack of capacities and resources, underdimensive intelligence services suffering from a political “piloting” defect, insufficient coordination between the various police services, dysfunctions in the circulation of information, disparate databases: the report was however edifying.
You have 53.68% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.