A family member of Mohamed Abrini, a key suspect in the Brussels and Paris terror attacks, has been convicted on terror charges and handed a suspended prison sentence.
A criminal court in Liège handed Abrini's, cousin, an unidentified 24-year-old woman, a 3-year suspended prison sentence and ordered her to pay a fine of €8,000, the latter sentence was also suspended.
The court's sentence came on charges of participating in the activities of a terror organisation, La Dernière Heure reports.
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The woman was detained in the Greek island of Corfou, from which she was attempting to reach Syria in August 2017.
A subsequent investigation revealed that she had been radicalised and participated in distributing Islamic State propaganda on social media.
She is the second member of Abrini's family to be targetted by a terrorism investigation. In 2017, the terror suspect's younger brother, Ibrahim Abrini, was indicted on suspicion of having helped his brother while he was on the run.
Detained in 2016, Abrini confessed to being the “man in the hat” seen in security footage from Zaventem airport leaving behind a bag of explosives. He was also seen in security footage at a Paris gas station with Salah Abdeslam, a central suspect of the attacks in Paris.
On Thursday, Abrini was one of four suspects whose pre-trial detention was extended, as the investigation into both attacks, which resulted in a combined death toll of over a hundred victims, continued.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times