Sebastien Courtoy, lawyer for Smail Farisi, argued in the Brussels Court of Assizes on Thursday that Oussama Atar, who led the terrorist cell responsible for the 22 March 2016 attacks from Syria, had been released by the authorities to become an informer.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office and State Security wanted Atar to help them bring down Imam Bassam Ayachi, the attorney claimed. Ayachi, a Franco-Syrian, is considered a veteran of Islamist radicalisation in Belgium.
Courtoy asked several questions about Atar, who was allegedly killed by a US drone in 2017, although his death has never been officially confirmed. He is believed to have masterminded the Brussels attacks from Raqqa, Syria.
Multiple trips to Syria
Oussama Atar made three trips to Syria. During the first, in the summer of 2000, when he was still a minor, he was accompanied by, among others, the son of Imam Bassam Ayachi.
During the second trip, three years later, he was arrested in Iraq and detained in various prisons, including Abu Graib. His family obtained his release in 2012.
He was arrested again on arrival in Belgium. An investigating judge charged him with participation in the activities of a terrorist group. He was released a little later and, in late 2013, he returned to Syria, where he rose through the ranks of the Islamic State terrorist group.
Earlier in the trial, investigating judge Olivier Leroux explained that there had been fears in 2012 that Atar would be tried twice for the same offences, because he had already served a sentence in Iraq. However, Courtoy asked again on Thursday why Atar had been released at the time.
State security informer
He wanted to know if the investigating judges knew that Atar was “an informer for the public prosecutor’s office and State Security.”
“They wanted him to bring down Bassam Ayachi. Why was this not investigated?” the lawyer asked.
Judge Olivier Leroux replied that he and his two fellow investigating judges were in charge of investigating the Brussels and Zaventem attacks. “If you are referring to 2012, that is outside our case,” he said.
Imam Bassam Ayachi was considered one of the inspirers of Islamic radicalism in Belgium, within the Belgian Islamic Centre (BIC) in Molenbeek, which he founded in the 1990s. In 2012, the CIB was dissolved by the courts.
In May 2022 in Paris, where he was on trial for his activities in Syria between 2014 and 2018, Ayachi received an additional five-year jail sentence for belonging to a terrorist organisation.
