BRUSSELS: Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche was ordered Thursday to stand trial in Brussels for allegedly killing four people at the Jewish museum four years ago in a jihadist attack, his lawyer said.
Judges decided there was enough evidence to try Nemmouche and alleged accomplice Nacer Bendrer, who is also French, in a Brussels court for the attack in 2014, lawyer Henri Laquay told AFP.
He did not name a date but the trial is expected to begin later this year or early next year.
But the judges decided there was not enough evidence to put Mounir Attalah, a third Frenchman linked to the attack, on trial.
On May 24, 2014 a gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire in the entrance hall of the museum in the center of the Belgian capital, killing two Israeli tourists, a French volunteer and a Belgian museum receptionist.
Six days later Nemmouche was arrested in the southern French port city of Marseille when getting off a bus from Brussels.
Nemmouche had returned from Syria where he had been fighting with Islamist extremists.
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Suspected Brussels Jewish museum killer to stand trial: lawyer
Suspected Brussels Jewish museum killer to stand trial: lawyer
- Mehdi Nemmouche is accused of killing four people on May 24, 2014
- Nemmouche was arrested in the southern French port city of Marseille when getting off a bus from Brussels
US sympathies shift to Palestinians from Israelis for first time: Gallup poll
- Poll: 41 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians and 36 percent sided with Israel
WASHINGTON: Americans for the first time sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis in their conflict, according to a Gallup poll released Friday, after the devastating Gaza war.
Views on the Middle East divide sharply along partisan lines, with the shift over the past year the result of more independents souring on Israel.
Overall, 41 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians and 36 percent sided with Israel, the poll said, with the rest undecided or saying they favored both or neither.
The gap is not statistically significant, but it marks the first time since Gallup asked the question more than two decades ago that Israel was not on top.
It also marks a sharp difference from just a year ago, when Israel led in sympathies 46 to 33 percent.
When asked about their sympathies, independents sided with the Palestinian people by 11 percentage points.
Members of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party continued to back Israel strongly, with 70 percent siding with Israel, although that figure has declined by 10 percentage points over the past decade.
Democrats’ views of Israel have grown increasingly negative since a decade ago, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly broke with then US president Barack Obama on his diplomacy with Iran.
Israel since then has moved sharply to the right. Some Democratic voters faulted former president Joe Biden for not doing more to rein in Israel in its devastating offensive in Gaza following the unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.
In the latest poll, 65 percent of Democrats sympathized with the Palestinians and 17 percent with Israel.
Gallup surveyed 1,001 US adults by telephone from February 2 to 16.
Views on the Middle East divide sharply along partisan lines, with the shift over the past year the result of more independents souring on Israel.
Overall, 41 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians and 36 percent sided with Israel, the poll said, with the rest undecided or saying they favored both or neither.
The gap is not statistically significant, but it marks the first time since Gallup asked the question more than two decades ago that Israel was not on top.
It also marks a sharp difference from just a year ago, when Israel led in sympathies 46 to 33 percent.
When asked about their sympathies, independents sided with the Palestinian people by 11 percentage points.
Members of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party continued to back Israel strongly, with 70 percent siding with Israel, although that figure has declined by 10 percentage points over the past decade.
Democrats’ views of Israel have grown increasingly negative since a decade ago, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly broke with then US president Barack Obama on his diplomacy with Iran.
Israel since then has moved sharply to the right. Some Democratic voters faulted former president Joe Biden for not doing more to rein in Israel in its devastating offensive in Gaza following the unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.
In the latest poll, 65 percent of Democrats sympathized with the Palestinians and 17 percent with Israel.
Gallup surveyed 1,001 US adults by telephone from February 2 to 16.
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