After 10 suspects were questioned by examining magistrate Ernest Nilles, nine have been charged with crimes connected to the series of bomb attacks that took place in Luxembourg in the 1980s, the state prosecutor’s office said in a press statement on 24 July.

Former high-ranking police officers Aloyse Harpes, Charel Bourg, Guy Stebens, Armand Schockweiler and former head of the Police grand-ducale Pierre Reuland are all charged with being directly involved or accomplices in six of the bomb attacks.

In addition, former investigators Paul Haan, Guillaume Büchler and Lucien Linden have been charged with providing false evidence, as has former Brigade Mobile de la Gendarmerie officer Marcel Weydert. But Ben Geiben, the former head of the brigade mobile, has not been charged.

The trial of two former officers in connection with the Bommeleeër attacks, Marc Scheer und Jos Wilmes, was suspended after 177 days in 2014 because several witnesses, including those charged on Wednesday, had implicated themselves in the crimes of which the two were accused.

The bomb attacks too place between between April 1985 and March 1986. They targeted public buildings, private homes and offices and utilities including electricity pylons and installations, but did not cause any direct human casualties. The case had far-reaching implications and even led indirectly to the downfall of the Juncker government in 2013.