Brussels Attack Convicts Express Remorse at Sentencing Hearing

Six defendants had been found guilty of the Brussels attacks, including murder, attempted murder and membership of a terrorist organization. On Monday, at the Brussels court, they expressed regrets for committing these acts. "I have questioned myself. I’m not proud to see women disfigured, injured in their flesh - and men too," said the Franco-Moroccan Salah Abdeslam, 33, addressing the victims present. Abdeslam had been sentenced to life imprisonment for participating in the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.

The criminal, who had always denied participating in the Brussels attacks, acknowledged on Monday that he had made "clumsy" remarks when he declared before the court a few months ago that the people killed and injured in the Brussels attacks were not "his victims." "Sometimes we don’t find the right words" after spending six and a half years in prison and in isolation, he confessed. Abdeslam says he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State after several young people from his neighborhood in Brussels joined rebel groups in Syria in 2011.

Mohamed Abrini, a 38-year-old Belgian-Moroccan, sentenced to life in Paris, says he is also plagued by remorse. Ali El Haddad Asufi and Bilal El Makhouki, two other Belgian-Moroccans also found guilty of these attacks, admitted to regretting their actions. While El Makhouki stated that the trial made him realize the considerable impact of the attacks, Asufi, sentenced to 10 years in prison in Paris, said the biggest mistake of his life was to be friends with Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the two Brussels bombers.

The Swede Osama Krayem remained silent for most of the trial, while the Tunisian Sofien Ayari said he had already expressed his regrets at a previous hearing and had nothing to add. Hervé Bayingana Muhirwa, of Belgian and Rwandan nationality, specified that he will "do his best to change." After the hearing, the families of the victims and the survivors left the courtroom in tears. "It wasn’t easy. I think I need time to digest what I heard," said Philippe Vansteenkiste, who lost his sister Fabienne in the airport attack.