Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche who shot dead four people in a terrorist attack at a Brussels museum was on Tuesday (March 12th) sentenced to life in prison by a court in the Belgian capital, AFP reported.

Nemmouche was convicted last week of "terrorist murder" for the gun rampage in Brussels in May 2014, a crime committed following his return from Syria's battlefields.

He was found to have killed the four victims in less than 90 seconds, shooting them with a handgun and a Kalashnikov rifle with what one paramedic who attended the scene called "surgical" precision.

Before jurors retired to consider the sentence on Monday, the 33-year-old had smirked and told the Brussels criminal court "life goes on".

The court, which handed down the sentence in the early hours of Tuesday morning, said Nemmouche had shown no regret for the killings.

"Mr. Nemmouche, you are just a coward, you kill people by shooting them from behind, you kill old women by shooting them with an assault rifle, you kill because it gives you pleasure to kill," prosecutor Yves Moreau had said.

Nacer Bendrer, who was found guilty of being the co-author of the attack for supplying the weapons Nemmouche used, was handed a jail sentence of 15 years.

Bendrer, who is also French, said he was ashamed that he had ever met Nemmouche, saying "he is not even a man, he is a monster".

The pair, who have 15 days to lodge an appeal, will both serve their sentences in France.