A Belgian court on Monday gave lengthy prison sentences to two members of a Muslim terrorist cell for plotting to attack local Jews and other targets.
The court in Brugge sentenced a man and his wife, from Chechnya, Russia, to 15 and eight years in prison respectively. Four of their co-conspirators, including the man’s brother, received suspended sentences and fines. A seventh defendant was acquitted, the Antwerp-based, Dutch-language news site HLN reported.
The man, identified as Abubakar S., and his accomplices had planned in the summer of 2023 to attack a target in a Jewish neighborhood of Antwerp and a gay bar while luring police and emergency services into a trap, HLN reported.
“They had worked out remarkably concrete plans to carry out attacks,” Amélie Van Belleghem, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, told the media.
Michael Freilich, a lawmaker in the Belgian parliament who is Jewish, told JNS that his own predominantly ultra-Orthodox community of Antwerp is especially at risk in Europe because of its visibility. Freilich commended the police, which got to the conspirators thanks to an informant or agent.
Antisemitic incitement is happening in Belgium outside Muslim circles, as well, Frelich noted. He cited a recent column by author Herman Brusselmans, who wrote that he’s resisting the urge to “ram a knife through the throat of every Jew.” The incendiary remarks, which caused a public outcry and spurred legal action, come at a time when anti-Jewish hatred is escalating around the globe, including in Belgium, in the wake of Israel’s 10-month-long war against Hamas in Gaza.
On social media, Brusselmans’ comments generated an outpouring of unabashed antisemitic incitement, Freilich said on Monday at a conference organized in Jerusalem by the Israel Defense and Security Forum and Hungary’s Danube Institute.
