Eight suspects will be tried on Monday over the July 2016 attack in the Mediterranean city of Nice, in which a radical Islamist killed 86 people by driving a truck into thousands of locals and tourists celebrating France’s National Day.
The attacker, a 31-year-old Tunisian named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was shot dead by police after rioting for more than four minutes on the Promenade des Anglais seawall.
The seven men and one woman being tried in Paris are charged with crimes ranging from knowing his intentions to providing logistical support and supplying weapons.
Only one suspect, Ramzi Kevin Arefa, faces the maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted as a repeat offender. The others face between five and 20 years in prison.
The trial, which begins at 1:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) and is expected to last until mid-December, is the latest court hearing into the Islamist attacks that have plagued France since 2015.
A Paris court on June 29 found all 20 suspects guilty in the trial over the November 2015 attacks in the French capital that killed 130 people.
The trial is being held at the historic Palais de Justice in Paris, in the same purpose-built courthouse that hosted the November 2015 attacks hearings, and a special venue has been set up in Nice to allow victims to watch the trial live.
– ‘Frustration’ –
While Lahouaiej-Bouhlel cannot now be brought to justice, like the November 2015 case, the trial marks an extremely important moment for survivors and victims’ families as they try to move on with their lives.
The extremist group Islamic State (IS) quickly claimed responsibility for the Nice attack, although French investigators ultimately found no connection between the attacker and the jihadist organization, which then controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria.
Of the defendants, three suspects are charged with involvement in a terrorist conspiracy and the other five with involvement in a criminal conspiracy and violation of gun laws.
The attack, which left 15 children and teenagers dead and 450 wounded, was the second deadliest post-war atrocity on French soil after the Paris attacks in November 2015.
Six years after the attack, “the fact that the only perpetrator isn’t there will create frustration. There will be a lot of questions that nobody can answer,” said Eric Morain, a lawyer for a victims’ association involved in the process.
“We’re trying to prepare them for the fact that the sentences may not reflect their suffering,” said Antoine Casubolo-Ferro, another lawyer for the victims.
In the November 2015 attack process, only one member of the attack team, Salah Abdeslam, was not killed during or after the attacks.
On the night of the attacks, he removed his suicide belt and claimed to have changed his mind about the attack. But he was sentenced to life in prison with only a tiny chance of parole after 30 years, the harshest sentence under French law.
French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti commented: “I understand this frustration, it’s human. But there will be a legal answer. We respond to this barbarism with the law.”
– ‘wound will never heal’ –
Of the accused, only seven will appear in court after a suspect, Brahim Tritrou, who was tried in absentia, fled judicial surveillance to Tunisia, where he is now believed to be arrested.
Only three of the accused are currently in custody, one in connection with another case. The accused are a mixture of Tunisians, French-Tunisians and Albanians.
About 30,000 people had gathered on the seafront promenade to see fireworks celebrating France’s annual Bastille Day holiday on July 14, when Lahouaiej-Bouhlel began his killing spree.
The attack left lasting scars on the city of Nice, a epitome of seaside urban glamor on France’s Côte d’Azur but which, like neighboring Mediterranean cities of Marseille and Toulon, has experienced rising immigration and social tensions.
Nice was hit again in October 2020 when a radical Tunisian Islamist stabbed three people in a church.
The right-wing mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, said: “This wound will never heal, no matter how the trial ends. This wound is too deep.”
According to French and Tunisian press reports, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s body was transferred to Tunisia in 2017 and buried in his hometown of M’saken, south of Tunis. This has never been confirmed by the Tunisian authorities.
