The defendant was also sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by the court. In the absence of their defendant, Hicham Chaib, 40, was sentenced in absentia. He was charged with the terrorist killing of an unspecified prisoner in Syria in March 2016. The former Sharia4Belgium member belonged to the Islamic State (EI) terrorist organisation at the time. Pictures of the execution were posted on the internet a few days after the Brussels and Zaventem attacks. The jury and the court described the offence as “particularly serious and heinous” and saw no mitigating circumstances.
Before he departed for Syria and joined the terrorist group Islamic State, Hicham Chaib was the right-hand man of Fouad Belkacem, the leader of the terrorist group Sharia4Belgium. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2015 as part of the Sharia4Belgium trial, when he had already disappeared and fled to Syria. In addition to the terrorist killing, Hicham Chaib was also convicted of participating in the activities of the Islamic State and threatening to commit a terrorist killing, as he had made threats against the Belgian population in the video of the execution.
The court ordered the immediate arrest of the accused, who still holds Moroccan nationality. During the investigation, there were reports, not confirmed by official sources, that Hicham Chaib had died in Syria. Nevertheless, caution is advised, as the spread of false death notices is a well-known strategy of the EI. In Belgium, state security still considers the accused as an active “foreign terrorist fighter”.La Libre