The 24-year-old American girl recounted seven years of fighting, since the first explosion at Zaventem airport. Beatrice de Lavalette opened, with great courage, four weeks of testimonies from victims of the attacks of March 22, 2016.
By Louis Colart
H
i !
It is 2:24 p.m. on Monday when Beatrice de Lavalette enters the courtroom for the trial of the Brussels attacks. The young American thus breaks with her “salute” the knife-cut silence that had gripped the room at the announcement of the call of the first witness hit by the bombs at Zaventem airport. Pushed on a wheelchair, she wears a pale pink suit and reassures herself by stroking the victim support dog.
Béatrice has the heavy responsibility of opening the ball for witnesses who are victims of the attacks. This essential sequence of the trial will last a month. She bears this burden with the mental strength she has gathered in almost seven years of combat. And passes in front of an almost full box of the accused – only Salah Abdeslam decides not to attend the testimonies.
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