Belgian prosecutors on Thursday demanded that four alleged jihadists accused of links to the terror cell behind the Paris and Brussels attacks receive between 10 and 18 years in jail.

The men were arrested after a deadly raid in the Belgian town of Verviers in January 2015 which exposed an alleged plan to kill police officers.

The Verviers plot "was the rough draft of Paris," prosecutor Bernard Michel told the court in Brussels, adding that the accused were under the orders of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the deadly November attacks in the French capital.