The 2016 terror attacks carried out in Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro station triggered shockwaves that have tested not only Belgium's national spirit but also the limits of its judicial system, posing both ethical and logistical problems at each step of the process.
Not only the greatest act of terror ever seen on the territory in peacetime, the bombings have also led to the most protracted legal proceedings that Belgium has ever known. Before the case was even heard the venue itself had to be adapted and non-too-eager jurors given a chance to present reasons as to why they should be exempt from participating in the seven-month ordeal.
But despite the vast expense, demands on civilians and obstacles along the way, there was little option but to follow through with the process. And with the hearing finishing on 6 July, the jury finally withdrew to deliberate the verdict. The conditions of their discussions are as unprecedented as the rest of the case – 19 days of near-detention in a Brussels hotel sealed from the outside world.
Presented with a dossier containing hundreds of questions, each of the 12 individuals will today reveal the decisions taken during the period of consideration in order, eventually, to deliver a verdict on the ten suspects, nine of whom stand trial for terrorist murders. Their answers to the key questions in the dossier will be secret.
The final sentences of the accused won't be given until September when jurors will confer with professional judges following a summer break. Yet even before the whole process is concluded, the scale of the challenge has raised pertinent questions about the very nature of justice and to what extent it can be served by existing systems.
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