security forces in Brussels
security forces in BrusselsYves Herman, Reuters

Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche was ordered Thursday to stand trial in Brussels for allegedly killing four people at the local 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 and served as a torturer for the ISIS terrorist organization.