Two members of an Islamic State terror cell were sentenced by a Belgian court on Monday for planning attacks in the Jewish quarter and in an LGBTQ bar in Antwerp, according to the Belga news agency.
Four co-conspirators received suspended sentences and fines. A seventh defendant was acquitted, the Antwerp-based Dutch language news site HLN reported.
The Bruges Criminal Court sentenced 26-year-old Abu Bakr S. and his 35-year-old wife Liza M., both of Chechnya, Russia, to prison terms of 15 years and eight years respectively. The Belgian federal prosecutor had requested 18-year terms and a fine of 12,000 euros for both. Abu Bakr’s brother was among the co-conspirators who received suspended sentences and fines.
“They had worked out remarkably concrete plans to carry out attacks,” Amélie Van Belleghem, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, told media.
Abu Bakr first reached out to the Islamic State (IS) terror organization via Telegram in summer 2023, according to multiple reports. He was arrested after buying a gun from an undercover agent, along with ordering a Kalashnikov and grenades.
The couple and their fellow jihadists had visited potential targets and rented a warehouse in which to store their weapons, the report said.
Michael Freilich, a Jewish lawmaker in the Belgian parliament, commended the police for reaching the terror cell. He also told JNS that his own predominantly haredi Orthodox community of Antwerp is especially at risk in Europe because of its visibility.
Antisemitic incitement is happening in Belgium outside of Muslim circles as well, Frelich noted, citing a recent column in which author Herman Brusselmans wrote that he is resisting the urge to “ram a knife through the throat of every Jew.”
Brusselmans’ comments generated an outpouring of unabashed antisemitic incitement on social media, Freilich said Monday at a conference organized in Jerusalem by the Israel Defense and Security Forum and Hungary’s Danube Institute.
JNS contributed to this report.
