..
Belgian court sentences terrorists behind 2016 Brussels bombings
A Belgian court on Friday handed out sentences ranging up to life in prison to eight men for the 2016 jihadist bombings in Brussels, ending the country's largest-ever criminal trial.
Issued on: 15/09/2023 - 22:53; 2 min
By: NEWS WIRES
A member of the United organisation of Victims waits for the reading of sentences in the trial of eight men
found guilty of participation or complicity in the March 2016 attacks in Brussels, on September 15, 2023.
© John Thys, Reuters
The suicide bombings on March 22, 2016 at Brussels' main airport and on the metro system killed 32 people and were claimed by the Islamic State group.
French citizen Salah Abdeslam and Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini – already sentenced to life in jail by France for a 2015 massacre in Paris – were the highest-profile of six culprits found guilty of murder in July.
Abrini, who was one of the intended bombers but decided not to blow himself up at the last moment, was given a 30-year jail term.
The court ruled not to give Abdeslam an additional term after he was sentenced in Belgium to 20 years in 2018 over a shootout.
The attacks – near the headquarters of both NATO and the EU – were part of a wave of attacks claimed by the Islamic State group in Europe.
Hundreds of travellers and transport staff were maimed and seven years on, many victims, relatives and rescuers remain traumatised.
Authorities later raised the official death toll from the attacks to 35, after finding a link between the trauma suffered and the deaths of three more people subsequently.
Dozens of wounded survivors and bereaved relatives gave emotional testimony during the months of hearings.
The trial, which started at the end of last year, was held under tight security at the converted former headquarters of the NATO military alliance.
Abdeslam, who turned 34 on Friday, was the sole surviving perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attack that killed 130 people.
He had fled to Brussels after taking part in the Paris attacks and holed up for four months in an apartment hosting members of the local cell.
A Belgian court turned down a request from the convict to stay in the country to carry out his sentence and he should eventually return to France to serve it.
Abrini was found guilty of being in one of the teams of suicide bombers who targeted Brussels' airport and a metro station.
He testified that he decided at the last minute not to detonate his explosive at the airport – as did another defendant, Osama Krayem, a Swede of Syrian descent.
Krayem was handed a life sentence, along with Bilal El Makhoukhi and Oussama Atar.
Atar, a senior commander in the Islamic State group who headed the jihadist cell, was tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017.
Herve Bayingana Muhirwa, who was found guilty of "participating in the activities of a terrorist group", was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The court ruled not to strip any of the convicts of their Belgian nationalities.
So, now, with all those years to wait, their 72 virgins will all be old hagues by then.
(AFP)
The Church of Sweden formed a ‘wall of love’
against criticism of Islam: ‘Salam alaykum'
Translated from “Svenska kyrkan bildade ’kärleksmur’ mot islamkritik: ”Salam alaykum”,”
by Simon Kristoffersson, Samnytt, September 13, 2023:
The Church of Sweden has committed itself to putting an end to criticism of Islam by burning the Koran. Recently, the church formed a “wall of love” outside Gothenburg’s mosque to counter “hate and threats against Muslims.”
The Church of Sweden organized a so-called love bombing to show its outrage at what it considers to be “hate and threats to Muslims,” Birgitta Westlin, priest in Lundby parish in Hissingen, tells the newspaper Dagen.
About 40 people appeared in connection with the Friday prayer at Gothenburg’s mosque and held up signs and banners with the text “extinguish the hate.” The priest attacked critics of Islam and stated that Koran burnings are “terrible” and “an abuse of freedom of speech.”
“We felt that we need to do something in support of our Muslim friends, and show humanity. We notice a pronounced threat, and where many are afraid to ride the tram nowadays,” says priest Birgitta Westlin to Dagen.
In a video drawing attention to the “wall of love” outside the mosque, the priest is heard greeting viewers in Arabic. Representatives from the Church of Sweden state that Koran burning is “controversial” and “causes problems.”
“Salam alaykum to you all,” says the priest.
I am inclined to believe that there is little or nothing of Jesus Christ left in the Church of Sweden. Pastor Westin needs to familiarize herself with the numbers of young Swedish girls who have been raped and gang raped by migrant Muslims. She needs to familiarize herself with the dramatic increase in crime in Sweden tied directly to the increase in Muslim immigrants. She needs to familiarize herself with the sheer hatred Muslims have for Christians and the thousands of martyrs they kill every year. Then she needs to get on her knees and beg forgiveness from God, and then resign.
Removed from a roundabout where he was praying,
Muslim hit a police officer: 3 months in prison
Translated from “Délogé d’un rond-point sur lequel il priait, il avait frappé un policier : 3 mois de prison ferme,”
Ouest France, September 13, 2023
On June 26, as night fell, a young man was surprised by passers-by in the middle of the theater roundabout, in the city center of Saumur, praying while shouting Allah Akbar. Alerted, a police patrol went there to ask him to leave the premises. But the welcome given to him is rather virulent: interrupted in his prayer, the 25-year-old faithful Muslim does not want to know anything.
As they tried to remove him, the police officers were attacked and one of them was hit in the face. He has a fractured nose and broken teeth (2 days of ITT). Placed in police custody, the man had to be quickly hospitalized under duress due to his very aggressive behavior in the cell. A psychiatric assessment was ordered, initially not revealing any impairment of his judgment.
Placed in police custody again in mid-July, upon his release from hospital, the man of Senegalese origin and holder of an Italian passport (he was in Saumur to work as a seasonal worker) was summoned to court to answer for his actions. He was tried for these acts of violence on Tuesday September 12 by the Saumur court which considered his psychotic disorders to be real.
Of course, they are! All devout Muslims are psychotic. When will France figure that out?
The public prosecutor, Alexandra Verron, requested a 10-month prison sentence and a ban on appearing in Maine-et-Loire. The court finally sentenced him to 6 months in prison, 3 of which were suspended. He was kept in detention.
Iran Revolutionary Guards chief targeted in French criminal complaint
France 24, September 14, 2023:
Along with Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Al-Quds force chief Esmail Qaani, Salami is accused of “death threats and justifying terrorism,” a lawyer for the six Iranian and Franco-Iranian plaintiffs said.
Their case refers to public threats issued by the three men between December 2022 and January 2023 against people backing the nationwide protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested for violating Iran’s female dress code.
Khatib said on December 13 last year that “anyone playing a role in the riots will be punished, wherever they are in the world”.
The declaration was spread widely in the press and on social media, according to the text of the criminal complaint seen by AFP.
Meanwhile, Salami himself said on January 10 that “the French people and the managers of (satirical anti-clerical magazine) Charlie Hebo” should not “concern themselves with the fate of Salman Rushdie”.
The British author has long been subject to a fatwa calling for his killing issued by Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and was gravely wounded in an August 2022 knife attack. Charlie Hebdo staff were massacred by jihadist gunmen in 2015 after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed….
No comments:
Post a Comment