They face sentences ranging from five years in prison to life in prison for their alleged collaboration in the mass attack that killed 86 people and injured 400.
Six years after the Nice attack on July 14, 2016, France is trying the eight alleged accomplices of the Tunisian jihadist who killed 86 people with a truck, including 15 children, and injured more than 400 in a massive outrage the day of the gala national holiday.
The terrorist Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian resident in Nice, was killed by the Police, so he cannot be tried. His alleged accomplices, involved to a greater or lesser degree in the attack, face sentences ranging from 5 years in prison to the maximum sentence of life imprisonment if they are found guilty.
The attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, took place on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where some 25,000 people had gathered to attend the fireworks that traditionally end the celebrations of July 14, a holiday French national.
The pyrotechnic show had ended when Lahouaiej-Bouhlel sowed terror. He entered the Paseo de los Ingleses with a 19-ton truck and deliberately ran over and zigzagged the pedestrians he encountered in his path. The attack lasted 4 minutes and 17 seconds until the police killed the terrorist.
The witnesses
The trial will take place in the court room of the Paris Court, specially built to host the trial of the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015, which killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis. Among the witnesses who will testify are former French President François Hollande and former Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve. The process is expected to last three months and the sentence will be known on December 16.
The attack shocked the inhabitants of Nice. “This wound will never close, regardless of the outcome of the trial. This wound is too deep,” the city’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, told the weekly ‘Le Point’.
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