Mohamed Abrini

A Brussels court on Tuesday convicted French citizen Salah Abdeslam and Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini for 2016 jihadist bombings in the Belgian capital that killed 32 people, after the country's largest-ever criminal trial.

The trial of Salah Abdeslam resumed in Belgium yesterday, but the last surviving Paris attacks suspect was absent after he refused to return to court.

The sole surviving suspect from the 2015 Paris terror attacks has gone on trial at a Belgian court over the gun fight that led to his arrest, according to BBC. 

Salah Abdeslam was captured in Brussels four months after the attacks.

The charges he faces are not related to events in Paris but to a shootout with police while on the run in Belgium.

Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the sole survivor among a group of Islamist militants who killed 130 people in Paris in November, was extradited to France from Belgium on April 27. 

The planners behind the March 22 bombings in Brussels which killed 32 people had initially planned to hit France for a second time but struck closer to home as investigators made arrests among key suspects, Belgian prosecutors said on April 10.

Mohamed Abrini, chief suspect in last year's November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, has admitted that he is the third suicide bomber who was meant to blow himself up at the airport in Brussels during the March 22 attacks in the Belgian capital.

Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini was arrested on April 8, a police source told AFP after a Belgian television station said he was detained in a Brussels district.

According to the Belgian Federal prosecutor, Frederic Van Leeuw Brahim El Bakraoui had dumped a laptop in a rubbish bin just before he carried out his attack at the metro station in Brussels. Newspaper ‘Le Soir’ reported that the laptop contained audio excerpt where the suicide bomber can be heard saying he did not want to be imprisoned like Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested last week in Paris.

Belgian newspaper DH reports that the third bombing suspect who fled the airport on Monday, Najim Laachraoui, has been arrested in Anderlecht.

The man shown at the photo below standing next to the two arrested attackers and wearing a hat is Nazim Lachraoui. The Belgian authorities arrested him on

Wednesday morning at a pizza restaurant, after launching a manhunt.

The Belgian authorities confirmed that brothers Khalid and Brahim El Bakraoui are among Brussels Airport suicide bombers.

According to Belgian broadcaster RTBF, the brothers were known to police for links to organized crime.

In the meantime, authorities have released a manhunt to find the third attacker.