Europe 1 with AFP 3:15 p.m., December 26, 2022
Chokri Chafroud and Mohamed Ghraieb, found guilty on December 13 of terrorist criminal association during the Nice attack of 2016 and sentenced to 18 years of criminal imprisonment, appealed the verdict of the special assize court of Paris.
This had gone beyond the requisitions of the anti-terrorist prosecution.
The two men sentenced to 18 years of criminal imprisonment at the trial of the Nice attack appealed the verdict of the special assize court of Paris, the national anti-terrorist prosecution (Pnat) told AFP on Monday.
After more than three months of hearing, Chokri Chafroud and Mohamed Ghraieb were found guilty on December 13 of terrorist criminal association for their involvement in the attack on the ram truck which left 86 dead and 450 injured on December 14. July 2016 on the Promenade des Anglais.
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The assailant, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was killed by the police after his murderous race.
The other six defendants, sentenced to between two and 12 years in prison, decided not to appeal the verdict.
"Only Chokri Chafroud and Mohamed Ghraieb have appealed the decision rendered by the assize court," said the Pnat.
A condemnation beyond the requisitions of the Pnat
By sentencing these two men to 18 years in prison, the court went beyond the requisitions of the anti-terrorist prosecution, which had claimed 15 years in prison against them.
"The seriousness of the acts committed by Mohamed Ghraieb and Chokri Chafroud is quite exceptional", had estimated the special assize court of Paris.
In her motivations, she had noted "an ideological convergence" between Mohamed Ghraieb, a 47-year-old Franco-Tunisian, and the perpetrator of the attack and had notably pointed to the sum of 2,000 euros that he had given her the day before the attack to buy him a car.
Chafroud, "true instigator of the attack"
According to the court, Mohamed Ghraieb "knew that by giving this sum in cash to a radicalized person, who also held a hate speech, supported the perpetrators of the attacks and who had given himself the logistical means of a passage to the violent act, he contributed to the preparation of a terrorist act".
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The court had also made Chokri Chafroud, a 43-year-old Tunisian national, "a real instigator of the attack, not in the religious or ideological motives of his action but in the choice of his modus operandi".
It was based in particular on the messages exchanged on Facebook with Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, where Chokri Chafroud suggested to his friend to use "a truck as a weapon of destruction".