Six years after suicide bombings, Belgium now ready to conduct its biggest trial

Belgium's worst peacetime massacre killed 32 people and injured hundreds more. Six and a half years later, Brussels will conduct its largestcriminal trial tilldate. On Wednesday, jury selection will begin the preparation for hearings into the charges against the nine alleged jihadists accusedof participating in the March 2016 suicide bombings.

The case will be heard in the former NATO military alliance headquarters, which has been temporarily converted into a massive high-security court complex. Hundreds of witnesses and victims will testify in the months to come, with some still hoping that telling their stories will provide them with some closure.

Salah Abdeslam, 33, has already been convicted in France as a ringleader in the November 13, 2015, Paris attacks that killed 130 people.In France, he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but he faces additional charges in Belgium.

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The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for both attacks and investigators believe they were carried out by the same Belgium-based cell, which included Abdeslam. The group had planned more violence, including alleged attacks on the Euro 2016 football tournament in France, but acted quickly after Abdeslam was arrested by police on 18 March. Four days later on 22 March, two bombers blew themselves up at theBrussels airport and another in a city centre metro station near the European Union's headquarters.

Along with those killed, hundreds of passengers and transportation workers were injured. Many victims, relatives, and rescuers are still traumatised even after six years of the incident.

According to the federal prosecutor's office, over 1,000 people have registered as civil plaintiffs to receive a hearing as alleged victims of the crime. This makes the trial, which is set to take place at the former NATO headquarters until June 2023, the largest ever held before a Belgian court.

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The jury selection process, in this case, is expected to be difficult. The court summoned 1,000 citizens to select 12 main jurors from among them, with 24 understudies on standby and ready to attend daily evidence hearings for months.

The trial was supposed to start in October, but there was a tiff over the dock, where the accused were to be held in individual glass-walled boxes. The defendants' areas have been rebuilt as a single, shared space, and testimony will begin on December 5 following a one-day jury selection hearing on Wednesday.

(With inputs from agencies)

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