Medieval Measures for Medieval Murderers
"Mehdi Nemmouche is guilty of committing four terrorist murders [in the killing of an Israeli couple and two Jewish museum employees on May 24, 2014]."
Judge Laurence Massart, Brussels criminal court
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| Court sketch of Mehdi Nemmouche in court in Brussels. Photograph: Reuters |
The 33-year-old, flanked by three police officers in ski masks sat impassively as the verdict of guilty of terrorist murders was read out to the court. A sentencing hearing yet to take place will establish how long he will be in prison for his crimes; he faces a sentence up to 30 years in prison. His accomplice, Nacer Bendrer, was also found "guilty beyond all reasonable doubt" of supplying the killer's revolver and assault rifle.
Nemmouche is a French citizen. He is suspected of having aligned himself with the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant. The attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels seemed to validate the fears that French citizens, returning from their sojourn abroad as members of ISIL establishing its caliphate, would return to Europe and once back, continue the terrorist group's reign of terror 'at home'. This is certainly what this man committed to.
Lawyers for the defence cooked up a story that their man had been the victim of a conspiracy, set up by security officials from Iran or Lebanon, who had him kill an Israeli couple at the museum, in the belief they might have been members of Israel's intelligence service, Mossad. Closed circuit security camera video from the museum showed a baseball-capped man armed with a revolver shooting the man and woman at point blank range in the back of their heads.
Following this double murder, Nemmouche strolled down a corridor, firing into offices as he passed, hitting and killing the two other victims, employees of the museum, before hauling his assault rifle out to spray the area. This entire performance took place during 82 seconds of focused action, leaving the killer to stride off finally, without one backward glance.
According to prosecutors, Nemmouche had fought alongside Islamic State terrorists in Syria. His experience there preparing him to continue the mission of jihad in the name of ISIL, back in Europe on his return. It took a week, but he was eventually captured in France and with him were the weapons he had used in the assault on the Jewish museum.
This rabid killer represents the very concern plaguing Europe of how to handle these citizens with their foreign experience fighting in the name of Islamic State. The fear is that, left where they are, ISIL prisoners could be tortured or executed in Syria or Iraq, while the EU opposes the death penalty. The intelligent thing to do would be to repress the impulse to remove them from the theatre of their deadly exploits and allow Islamic-style justice to take its course.
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| Pictures released on June 1, 2014, show then-29-year-old suspected terrorist Mehdi Nemmouche. (AFP) |
Security experts, however, warn that dozens of convicted terrorists will walk free from prisons in Europe in the next several years, many jihadis who had trained or fought in Syria and Iraq, yet never faced the serious charges for which they are guilty as a result of insufficient evidence available, against them in a European court of law, reflecting the difficulty of gathering solid evidence against such suspects.
Extraordinary existential circumstances call for extraordinary responses in a world faced with an Islamist terrorist crisis. The geographical territory taken by Islamic State may have been reduced to nothing but the ideological pathology that is so appealing to too many Muslims for whom the appeal of jihad is irresistible, calls for an adequate response. One that utilizes the application of new laws designed to realistically and forcefully address the threat. Commit terrorist murder, earn a death penalty.
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| File: A man lays flowers as he pays his respects in front of a makeshift memorial at the entrance of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, where a deadly shooting took place the day before, killing four, May 25, 2014 (Georges Gobet/AFP) |
Labels: Europe, Islamic State, Jihad, Justice, Muslim Citizens, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, March 09, 2019
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