A terrorist who killed four people in an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May 2014 has been sentenced to life in prison.
Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national who had previously fought for ISIS in Syria, had been found guilty last week, with prosecutors demanding a life sentence. The decision from the 12 jurors and three judges was announced on Monday night.
Nemmouche, 33, used a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a handgun to shoot all four of his victims - Israeli tourists Emanuel and Miriam Riva, museum employee Alexandre Strens and Dominique Sabrier - in less than 90 seconds.
Three died immediately. Mr Strens died two weeks later in hospital.
The trial saw a number of unsubstantiated claims put forward by Nemmouche’s lawyers, including that foreign intelligence agencies – including Mossad - were behind the attack, that Nemmouche had been recruited by Lebanese or Iranian intelligence to join ISIS as an undercover agent and even that Nemmouche could not be antisemitic because he wore Calvin Klein shoes.
During the trial, Nemmouche was described as “arrogant” and “smirking”. When asked to make a statement, he reportedly said: “Life goes on.”
An accomplice who helped plan the attack and provide the weapons, Nacer Bendrer, was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Ayelet and Shira Riva, the daughters of Emmanuel and Miriam Riva, the Israeli couple murdered at the museum, came face to face with their parent’s murderer at the trial, describing their parents as “devoted” and “loving to travel.”
Prosecutor Yves Moreau had described Nemmouche as a “coward”, who “killed because it gives you pleasure to kill.”
He pressed for a strong sentence, telling the jury: “If you say that in Belgium one can be a terrorist without being punished very severely, then we must not be surprised to see people arrive in this country with bombs or assault rifles in their suitcases.”