The families of the three victims of the October 2020 knife attack in the basilica of Nice, by a 22-year-old Tunisian, have an appointment on Wednesday with the investigating magistrate to be informed of the progress of the investigation, a-t -we learned Tuesday, March 22 from concordant sources.
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This meeting at the Nice courthouse with Jean-Marc Herbaut, vice-president in charge of the investigation at the anti-terrorism center at the Paris judicial court, was initially to be held on January 19 but had been postponed, the magistrate being suffering from Covid , according to the daily Nice Matin.
Wednesday at 2:00 p.m., the families of Nadine Devillers, a 60-year-old Niçoise, Simone Barreto Silva, a 44-year-old Franco-Brazilian mother of three children, and sexton Vincent Loquès, 55, father of two daughters, should notably meet present the results of the psychiatric expertise of the suspect, Brahim Aouissaoui.
Seriously injured during his arrest, the author, aged 22 at the time, was then transferred to the Paris region, to Fresnes hospital.
As part of the judicial investigation opened by the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office (PNAT), the man had been indicted for "
murders and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise
".
Known in Tunisia for acts of violence and drugs, the young man, who arrived in Europe illegally via the Italian island of Lampedusa, had turned to religion and then isolated.
Questioned at the beginning of April 2021, the man had assured not to remember the events of Nice.
According to a source familiar with the matter,
Read alsoBlois: the man arrested in the Basilica in possession of a knife and a Koran placed in a psychiatric hospital
“Amnesic Attitude”
"
The assailant is in total denial, in an amnesiac attitude, but that will not prevent the investigation from advancing
," assured Me Samia Maktouf, the sexton's family lawyer, to AFP.
“
Even when he was submitted photos of him in Nice, he had the insolence to go so far as to say that it was not him when the photos are very clear.
The civil parties expect a lot from this first meeting
” with the investigating judge, she added.
Wednesday morning, before meeting the civil parties, Jean-Marc Herbaut should audition for the first time a faithful of the parish, the main witness of the attack which took place on October 29, 2020 shortly after 8:30 a.m.
A request for nullity introduced by the defense of the suspect, according to whom the secrecy of the instruction had been violated, “
was recently rejected
”, indicated his lawyer, Me Tewfik Bouzenoune.
Brahim Aouissaoui's defense demanded the cancellation of the minutes drawn up after the attack.