(AFP) A Frenchman accused of shooting four people dead at a Jewish museum in Brussels went on trial on Thursday, allegedly the first Syria jihad veteran to stage a terror attack in Europe.
Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, who was in court, faces a life sentence if convicted of the cold-blooded killings in the Belgian capital on May 24, 2014, following his return from Syria’s battlefields.
Both Nemmouche and Nacer Bendrer, a fellow Frenchman aged 30 who allegedly supplied the weapons, appeared calm as the trial began in a Brussels criminal court under heavy security.
Accompanied by two police officers in balaclavas, Nemmouche sat down in the dock wearing an orange sweater.
At the presiding judge’s request, he gave his name: “Nemmouche, Mehdi.”
