They will succeed the defendants of the trial of the attacks of November 13 in the courtroom of the special assize court of Paris. Seven men and a woman are on trial from Monday, September 5 in the trial of the Nice attack. On the evening of July 14, 2016, terrorist Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a truck into the crowd, killing 86 and injuring hundreds on the Promenade des Anglais, before being shot dead by the police. .
Of the eight accused, three are returned to justice with a terrorist qualification. If their adherence to the jihadist ideology has not been established, the latter could not ignore, according to the investigating judges, the fascination of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel for the abuses of the Islamic State (IS) group. The other five defendants, one of whom is on the run, are on trial for criminal association and weapons offences. Here are the charges against them.
Two relatives of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, but investigations have proven that it was an opportunistic statement. No link has been established between the organization and the 31-year-old Tunisian, with an unstable and violent psychological profile. The investigation therefore focused on his entourage. From the analysis of the telephony, two names emerged, Mohamed Ghraieb and Chokri Chafroud.
Mohamed Ghraieb appears free, because he has been placed under judicial supervision since January 30, 2020. He is dismissed for criminal terrorist association and faces thirty years of imprisonment. This 46-year-old man, who works in the hotel industry, is a childhood friend of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, whom he met in Tunisia.
Justice accuses him of having associated himself with the steps of the assailant to rent the heavyweight. Two photos of this man on board the 19 tons, dating from July 11, were found by the investigators. Mohamed Ghraieb is also accused of having provided the terrorist with an unusable handgun in June 2016 and of having received several text messages from Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel concerning the delivery of five weapons for a “violent action” scheduled, according to the prosecution, for August 15, 2016.
The interested party contests all the facts. He also denies being the author of a message “I am not Charlie”sent to Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel on January 10, 2015. His lawyers, Vincent Brengarth and William Bourdon, intend to plead acquittal.
“There is nothing that hangs up our client on the commission of the attack. He is at the antipodes of any form of radicalism.”
Vincent BrengarthMohamed Ghraieb’s lawyer
Chokri Chafroud’s defense is similar. This 43-year-old Tunisian is accused more or less of the same facts and incurs the same sentence. He met Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel five to six months before the events, in Nice. An illegal immigrant, he was then in a precarious situation. “Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel paid him sandwiches”, explains his lawyer, Chloé Arnoux. The pair have traded 1,505 times in that span. A message from Chokri Chafroud, dated April 4, 2016, particularly interested justice: “Load the truck with 2,000 tons of iron and cut its brakes my friend and I am watching.”
This sentence was ultimately not used against him, for lack of evidence supporting his radicalization. Like Mohamed Ghraieb, Chokri Chafroud is accused of having boarded the heavyweight on July 12 and having been informed of its rental. He is accused of having contributed to providing a handgun to Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in the weeks preceding the attack and also received the text messages about five weapons, including a sibylline: “Chokri and his friends are ready for next month.”
“He is accused of having received text messages, it is not an action!” rejects his lawyer. His client has been in pre-trial detention for six years. “He has been in a psychiatric hospital because he has maintained his innocence from the start”according to Chloé Arnoux, who also intends to plead the acquittal.
A drug dealer who supplied the weapon found in the truck
Ramzi Arefa, a 28-year-old Franco-Tunisian, is the third accused returned for criminal terrorist association. He is being prosecuted for having acted as an intermediary between Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel and the arms suppliers. In a state of recidivism, for acts of drug trafficking, he faces life imprisonment.
Since October 2015, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel has been getting cannabis and cocaine from Ramzi Arefa about once a week. A few months before the attack, he contacted him to find weapons: “I was a jack of all trades”, justified Ramzi Arefa to the investigators. He acknowledges having given him an automatic pistol and ammunition on July 12, 2016, for 1,400 euros. This weapon was used by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel the evening of the attack to shoot at police officers.
Ramzi Arefa had also recovered a Kalashnikov on July 13 but it remained stored in a cellar of his building and he denies having intended to sell it to the terrorist. The judges doubt this version. They also believe that Ramzi Arefa could not ignore the recent radicalization of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.
They also hold against him the text messages received concerning the rental of the truck and this supposed violent action, scheduled for August 2016. For the advice of Ramzi Arefa, these messages “cannot be considered as proof, in the light of the personality of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who sent tons of meaningless messages”.
“We can ask ourselves the question of a desire to involve each other without it having any connection with reality other than in the head of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.”
Adélaïde Jacquin, one of Ramzi Arefa’s lawyersat franceinfo
“I was very shocked by this story, when I learned what I was involved in, said Ramzi Arefa during the investigation. My story is all clumsy, I’m just a guy from the city and I was stupid. I just wanted to scratch [de l’argent]“. “He is a narcotics seller who has agreed to be the intermediary for the sale of a weapon to a client, in a business logic”, supports Adélaïde Jacquin. His client, in pre-trial detention for six years, “I really want to express myself” but he is “impressed” by the prospect of a trial.
Intermediaries in the arms circuit
To find the weapons requested by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, Ramzi Arefa turned, according to the prosecution, to an acquaintance, Brahim Tritrou. This 37-year-old man, a cocaine user, is on trial for having put him in contact with his dealer, Artan Henaj, an Albanian national. As such, he is being prosecuted for criminal association and faces ten years in prison.
Released in early 2019, Brahim Tritrou fled to Tunisia. Arrested by the Tunisian authorities last January, he was placed under judicial control, his lawyer told franceinfo. “He spent 25 months in pre-trial detention in France when there is almost no charge against him”deplores Margot Pugliese, who intends to plead acquittal.
Artan Henaj, 44, is being taken to court for having provided Ramzi Arefa with two weapons, the automatic pistol found in the truck and the Kalashnikov, which was ultimately not used. Released for procedural flaws in December 2020, he returned to bars for other crimes. “He does not have the profile of an arms trafficker. He is someone who occasionally found himself selling them”, assures franceinfo his lawyer, Karim Laouafi. He hopes that his client will not receive the maximum possible sentence (ten years) because his name is associated with a terrorist file.
His ex-girlfriend Enkeledja Zace appears free for criminal association. Placed under judicial control after a year and a half of pre-trial detention, this 48-year-old woman is accused of having played the role of translator between Artan Henaj and Ramzi Arefa, of having attended the arms transaction and of having received pass 100 euros. According to her lawyer, Joseph Hazan, she strongly contests the charges against her. “We are tracking people who have contributed to a terrorist building. But legally, it is very complicated to prove that she would have participated in a group”he says to franceinfo.
In this circle of intermediaries, we also find Maksim Celaj, an Albanian compatriot of Artan Henaj. He also benefited from a release for defect of form, at the end of 2020. This 30-year-old man admitted to having gone to seek the Kalashnikov on the heights of Nice, on July 13, 2016. “Its role is very limited and the weapon in question was not used for deadly projectsrecalls his lawyer Clémence Cottineau. He found himself in this file which completely overwhelmed him.”
“I hope that all this will not cause frustration on the side of the civil parties, who expect a lot of answers.”
Clémence Cottineau, lawyer for Maksim Celajat franceinfo
The eighth and final defendant in this section is Endri Elezian Albanian aged 30 years. He is prosecuted for being the supplier of the Kalashnikov, which came from a burglary. Returned to Albania in August 2016, he was the subject of an arrest warrant but will finally appear under judicial control. His cousin, Adriatik Elezi, committed suicide in custody in June 2018. The 38-year-old man had been identified as the supplier of the handgun found in the truck. As his lawyer, Olivia Ronen, told franceinfo, he “couldn’t stand the label of terrorist” and the conditions of detention that went with it.