(Brussels Times) The Brussels Court of Appeal has ordered the Belgian police to stop the daily strip searches of the defendants in the trial for the 22 March 2016 terror attacks in Brussels.
The daily strip searches of the defendants accompanied by genuflection — forcing them to bend their knees — before being transferred to court have been disrupting the trial since December. Several of the accused have refused to appear before the judge until the practice ceased.
The Belgian state, which justified the strip searches on security grounds, had appealed against a first decision banning the practice at the end of December.
