(Paris) The two sentenced on appeal to 18 years in prison for their role in the attack of July 14, 2016 in Nice (south-east), the second deadliest committed in France with 86 deaths, filed an appeal in cassation, we learned Monday from their lawyers.
Mohamed Ghraieb, a 48-year-old Franco-Tunisian, and Chokri Chafroud, a 44-year-old undocumented Tunisian migrant, were close to Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, author of the ram truck attack which also left more than 450 people injured, on the Promenade des Anglais on the evening of the French national holiday.
They were sentenced to 18 years in prison, on appeal and at first instance, for terrorist conspiracy.
The two men have always proclaimed their innocence, despite their proximity to Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, killed by the police.
“We expect the supreme court to censor a judgment which is only the extension of a one-sided trial and which expedites, among other cardinal principles, that of the personalization of sentences,” they told AFP two lawyers for Mr. Ghraieb.
“The application of the crime of terrorist criminal association in the absence of tangible constitutive elements raises serious legal questions that the Court of Cassation will have to decide,” Mr.’s lawyers explained to AFP in particular. Chafroud.
In announcing the verdict on appeal, the president of the court affirmed that “those close to Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had observed his radicalization”.