Trial opens in France over 2016 Nice truck massacre

Eight suspects go on trial Monday over the July 2016 attack in the Mediterranean city of Nice, where a radical Islamist killed 86 people by driving a truck into thousands of locals and tourists celebrating France's national day.

In this Monday July 18, 2016 file photo, people look at flowers placed on the Promenade des Anglais at the scene of a truck attack. France's counter-terrorism prosecutors have requested nine suspects to be send to trial in connection with the 2016 Bastille Day truck attack in Nice that left 86 people dead. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, © AP Photo/Claude Paris

The attacker, a 31-year-old Tunisian named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was shot dead by police following the more than four-minute rampage down the seaside embankment of the Promenade des Anglais.

The seven men and one woman who will go on trial in Paris are accused of crimes from being aware of his intentions to providing logistical support and supplying weapons.

Truck used to carry ot the 14 July 2016 Nice attack on the Promenade des Anglais. Reuters/Eric Gaillard

Only one suspect, Ramzi Kevin Arefa, faces the maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted as a recurring offender. The others risk between five and 20 years in prison.

The trial, which gets underway at 1:30 pm local time and due to last until mid-December, is the latest legal process over the Islamist attacks that have hit France since 2015.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Seven men and one woman will go on trial over the 2016 Bastille Day attack in the French city of Nice. Eighty-six people were killed and hundreds injured by a gunman who drove a heavy truck into a crowd gathered to watch fireworks https://t.co/SPPAdbZGHP pic.twitter.com/mhfOyIi1BY

— Reuters (@Reuters) September 2, 2022

A Paris court on June 29 convicted all 20 suspects in the trial over the November 2015 attacks in the French capital which left 130 dead.

The trial will take place within the historic Palais de Justice in Paris at 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 follow proceedings via a live broadcast.

• Paris court condemns 19 accused terrorists, Abdeslam jailed for life

Islamic State?

While Lahouaiej-Bouhlel cannot now be brought to justice, the trial, as in the November 2015 case, marks a hugely important moment for survivors and relatives of the victims as they seek to move on with their lives.

The extremist Islamic State (IS) group rapidly claimed responsibility for the Nice attack, though French investigators ultimately did not find any links between the attacker and the jihadist organisation which at the time controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Of the accused, three suspects are charged with association in a terrorist conspiracy and the five others with association in a criminal conspiracy and violating arms laws.

The attack, which saw 15 children and adolescents among the dead and 450 wounded, was the second most deadly postwar atrocity on French soil after the November 2015 Paris attacks.

Passers by walk outside the Bataclan concert hall with wreaths of flowers marking the 5th anniversary of the Nov. 13, 2015 attacks, in Paris, Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. In silence and mourning, France is marking five years since 130 people were killed by Islamic State extremists who targeted the Bataclan concert hall, Paris cafes and the national stadium. AP - Francois Mori

Six years after the attack, "the fact that the sole perpetrator is not there will create frustration. There will be many questions that no one will be able to answer," said Eric Morain, a lawyer for a victims' association that is taking part in the trial.

"We are trying to prepare them for the fact that the sentences may not be commensurate with their suffering," said Antoine Casubolo-Ferro, another lawyer for the victims.

In the November 2015 attacks trial, just one member of the assault team, Salah Abdeslam, was not killed during or in the wake of the strikes.

He discarded his suicide belt on the night of the attacks and claimed to have changed his mind about attacking. But he was sentenced to life in prison with only a tiny chance of parole after 30 years, the toughest possible punishment under French law.

French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti commented: "I understand this frustration, it is human. But there will be a legal response. We respond to this barbarism through the law".

• Remembering the horror of Bastille Day in the city of Nice, five years later

(With AFP)