Those accused of the 2016 Nice attack are sentenced to up to 18 years in prison

French justice on Tuesday sentenced the eight defendants over the 2016 Nice bombing in which 86 people died sentenced to between two and 18 years’ imprisonment.

The five magistrates of the Paris court have recognized the eight people guilty since September of various crimes, although none for complicity with the perpetrator of the massacre, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian who was shot by the police.

Three of the defendants were charged with “criminal terrorist association”. The other five are on trial for crimes related to arms trafficking.

“I’m guilty of selling a weapon without thinking about it. And since then, for more than six years I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I hope you understand,” said one of the three main defendants, Ramzi Arefa.

The other two, the French-Tunisian Mohamed Ghraieb, 47, and the Tunisian Chokri Chafroud, 43, “have committed less incriminating acts”explained the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), but “they knew, unlike Ramzi Arefa, that Lahouaiej Bouhlel was about to carry out an attack”.

For the other five defendants, the PNAT had he asked for sentences ranging from 2 to 10 years in prison.

The three-month trial was followed closely by the survivors and families of the victims. Some were able to come to Paris to watch the trial, but many watched it through a secure website or at a special observation center set up near the beach in Nice.

A massacre in the middle of the festivities

On July 14, 2016, a truck with the 31-year-old Tunisian at the wheel collided with crowds watching a fireworks display in Nice on French National Day. More than 450 people were injured.

It took Lahouaiej-Bouhlel 4 minutes and 17 seconds to ram his speeding 19-ton truck into a crowd of families, tourists and others gathered for the Bastille Day fireworks display on the picturesque Promenade des Anglais.

Among the victims were 33 foreigners and 15 children. More than 2,400 people filed for civil action in the trial.

The ISIS group claimed responsibility for the attack, of which it is a part a series of attacks in Europe the last decade, when an international coalition was fighting the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.

While investigators found that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had expressed support for the group, they found no clear evidence of his ties to agents of the terrorist group, which was active in Syria and Iraq at the time.

In November 2015, 130 people were killed in a series of attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis (the northern suburb of the French capital). Justice had already imposed a life sentence on Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of those commandos and also tried on this occasion.

Source: AFP, EFE and AP