(National-UAE) The lawyer of one of the 10 defendants in the trial of an ISIS-claimed double suicide bombing in Brussels in 2016 has made the case that his client is complicit in war crimes.
Nicolas Cohen, representing Bilal El [Makhoukhi], argued that the attacks that killed 32 and wounded hundreds was an extension of the conflict in Syria — a significant shift from the legal strategy of more high-profile defendants such as Salah Abdeslam.
The defendants’ lawyers have in most cases requested that their clients be acquitted while minimising their involvement in the attacks.
“What happened is a war crime,” said Mr Cohen, speaking at the high-security court set up for Belgium’s largest-ever trial in Nato’s former headquarters north of the capital.
