During the trial of the 2016 Brussels terror attacks, the lawyers of the two defendants who at the last minute decided not to blow themselves up told the jury to declare them guilty on all counts.
"Yes, Mohamed Abrini pushed that trolley (with a bomb on it) at Zaventem airport. Yes, he is the man with the hat," Abrini's lawyer Stanislas Eskenazi's said in a brief plea. "So I am going to reassure you right now: you can declare him guilty across the board."
As soon as he was arrested after the attacks, Abrini confessed that should have been the third to blow himself up at Brussels Airport, but ran away instead.
"He also admitted that right after his arrest, even before the investigators had DNA of him," said Eskenazi. "So I do not want to hear that Abrini is not taking responsibility. He already admitted at the Paris trial [about the November 2015 Paris attacks] that he should have blown himself up there, and he has again taken responsibility here in Brussels."
'Memories of life'
The lawyer also denounced Abrini's solitary confinement and the conditions under which he is transported from prison to court. "He is transported in a way designed to take away all orientation, and then they blame him for sometimes making confusing statements?"
Abrini's other lawyer, Laura Pinilla, pointed out that Abrini had turned to a couple of victims at one point during the trial. He apologised to the woman and asked how her husband was doing. "Who has not been moved by that? I call such moments memories of life, brilliant reminders of what humanity is. Mohamed Abrini listened to the victims with interest and empathy."
She added that she hoped the jury would convict Abrini for the right reasons and said that he is not "a bloodthirsty monster, the great terrorist, the bomb-maker" the prosecutors are making him out to be.
"There is no evidence whatsoever that he made the bombs. His DNA cannot be found on any object related to the bombs. He bought nothing and gave no financial support to the group," she said. "But he did push that luggage trolley at Zaventem. For that, you may convict him, not for other reasons. Then justice will be done."
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With these words, the lawyers are seemingly already setting up pleas for the sentencing – which will not take place until September. Considering they are already asking the jury to be nuanced about Abrini, they will ask not to give him the maximum sentence of life in prison.
The lawyers of Osama Krayem followed the same reasoning. On the day of the terror attacks, Krayem was on his way to the metro with a backpack full of explosives, along with Khalid El Bakraoui. But like Abrini, he eventually decided not to blow himself up.
"We do not have any argument to make about the question of guilt, only arguments about punishment. We did not even intend to argue about his guilt, there is no doubt about that," lawyer Gisèle Stuyck said. "But there were a number of errors in the prosecutors' plea, and we have to correct them anyway."
The lawyer stressed that Krayem was not a bomb-maker either, and pointed to a few elements brought in by the Federal Prosecutor's Office that they said were incorrect. "We want you to convict him on the basis of correct arguments, not on the basis of wrong information."
