Trial begins over 2016 Brussels attacks that killed 32

Ten men are set to go on trial over the 2016 Brussels terror attacks that killed 32 people and injured hundreds in what was Belgium’s worst peacetime atrocity. 

The trial, which begins on Monday, starts six and a half years after the attacks on the Brussels airport and Maelbeek metro station on 22 March 2016. 

The trial will be held in a specially constructed court in Nato’s former headquarters. 

The 10 accused include Salah Abdeslam who was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison last year in separate legal proceedings for his role in the Paris attacks of 2015 – which killed 130 people and injured more than 490. 

Abdeslam is among five of the accused who have been convicted in France over the Paris attacks. 

Mohamed Abrini is also on trial, he is alleged to be the “man in the hat” caught on camera with two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at Brussels airport. It is claimed Abrini left a bomb in the departure hall and fled. 

Osama Krayem, another of the defendants, planned to be a suicide bomber but changed his mind at the last minute, according to his former lawyer. Another of the accused, Oussama Atar will be tried in absentia. He is believed to have been killed in Syria in 2017. 

The first week of the trial will see a reading of the charges accused. The selected jury includes seven women and five men and the trial is expected to last between six and nine months and will hear from hundreds of survivors and witnesses.