The president of the Brussels Assize Court established on Friday followingnoon that there was no reason to pronounce the inadmissibility of the proceedings once morest Ali El Haddad Asufi in the trial of the Brussels attacks of March 22, 2016. The latter’s counsel, Me Jonathan De Taye, had pleaded the inadmissibility of the proceedings on the basis of the principle of “non bis in idem”, i.e. the fact of not being able to be prosecuted for the same facts, recalling that his client had was tried in Paris, last June, in the case of the attacks of November 13, 2015.
The president then turned to the boxes in which the defendants were to be found throughout the trial. According to her, there is no particular need to have separate boxes for each accused. The president thus evokes a single box where all the accused might be placed. The court orders to dismantle the boxes of the defendants, for October 10 – date of the composition of the popular jury. This is a second disavowal for the prosecution this week since earlier this week, the court has already decided to release the Farisi brothers.
The defense satisfied
The defense hailed a “good decision” on Friday from the president of the Brussels Assize Court. “Too bad it had to come to this,” said Me Virginie Taelman, Bilal El Makhoukhi’s lawyer. “The authorities have been alerted for two years regarding these individual glass boxes and yet have headlong rushed to build them,” said Me Taelman. “I hope at least they have planned an alternative.”
“This is a strong message from the president of the court,” said Me Stanislas Eskenazi, defense of Mohamed Abrini. “She analyzed each element and found that the current boxes violate Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
