Six years after the attack of July 14, 2016 in Nice in the south-east of France, eight defendants appear from Monday before the special assize court of Paris for a new extraordinary terrorist trial, scheduled to last more of three months.
This attack on the Promenade des Anglais, on the evening of the National Day, left 86 dead, including 15 children and adolescents, and more than 450 injured. This is the second deadliest attack on French soil, after the attacks of November 13, 2015.
As a symbol, the trial will take place in the “tailor-made” courtroom built for the November 13 trial (known as “V13”), in the historic courthouse in the capital.
A total of 865 people had become civil parties at the end of August, others will be able to do so during the hearing. For those who cannot come to Paris, the trial will be broadcast at the Acropolis convention center in Nice.
The perpetrator, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian, will be conspicuously absent from the debates.
On July 14, 2016, driving a 19-tonne truck, he drove into the crowd gathered to attend the fireworks and concerts organized that evening on the famous avenue in Nice. He was killed there by the police.
The attack, eighteen months after the attack perpetrated on the premises of the satirical weekly Charlie-Hebdo and eight months after those of November 13, had been claimed by the Islamic State organization. A claim “of pure opportunity”, however, concluded the investigation, which did not establish a direct link between the author and the jihadist group.
” Collective memory “
In the absence of the assailant, the magistrates of the special assize court, chaired by Laurent Raviot, will examine the responsibility of seven men and one woman, aged 27 to 48, members of his entourage or presumed intermediaries in the arms trafficking intended for Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel.
Three defendants (Ramzi Kevin Arefa, Chokri Chafroud and Mohamed Ghraieb) are prosecuted for terrorist association. The first, in a state of legal recidivism, incurs life imprisonment, the other two twenty years in prison.
The other five (Maksim Celaj, Endri Elezi, Artan Henaj, Brahim Tritou and Enkeledja Zace) are being prosecuted for criminal association and weapons law violations. They risk five to ten years in prison.
Only three defendants will be in the inmate box (including one incarcerated in another case).
Four will appear free, under judicial control. The eighth, Brahim Tritrou, is the subject of an arrest warrant after breaking his judicial control. According to his lawyer, he is being held in Tunisia.
In the absence of the assailant and while the complicity in the assassinations has not been held against the accused, many civil parties say they “do not expect much” from the trial, which they foresee as “frustrating”.
“I hear this frustration, it is human. But there will be a judicial response ”, recently assured the Keeper of the Seals, Éric Dupond-Moretti. “We respond to this barbarism with the law”.
For History
In addition to judging their alleged perpetrators, these major trials of terrorist acts also make it possible to “facilitate the work of reconstruction of the victims”, underlined on France Inter radio the general prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, François Molins.
In addition, they “participate in the construction of a kind of collective memory around the mass killings”, added the one who was Paris prosecutor during the attacks of 2015-2016.
On Friday, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, reminded the BFMTV channel that the “terrorist threat remains very significant”, evoking “intentions to come to national soil and commit attacks”.
As during the V13 trial, the hearing will be broadcast by web radio for the civil parties, with a 30-minute delay. New in the device, this web radio will be accessible from abroad and a translation provided in English.
The trial will also be filmed and recorded for history.
Among the witnesses expected, the former President of the Republic François Hollande and his Minister of the Interior at the time Bernard Cazeneuve, who had already testified during the V13 trial.
Five weeks will be devoted to the testimony of civil parties, relatives of the victims and survivors of the attack, before the first interrogations of the accused in early November.
The verdict is scheduled for December 16.