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Attack on the national holiday: in 2016, 86 people died in the Islamist-motivated attack in Nice, France
Photo: Andreas Gebert / dpa
For months, several supporters of the 2016 truck attack were on trial in France.
Now the Paris court has found all the accused guilty.
Two friends of the perpetrator who was shot by the police were each sentenced to 18 years in prison for their involvement in a terrorist organization.
The other defendants were sentenced to prison terms, among other things, for arms trafficking.
On July 14, 2016, the French national holiday, the Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a heavy truck into a crowd on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
He also shot people.
Ultimately, there were 86 fatalities, including two students and a teacher from Berlin.
More than 200 people were injured.
The perpetrator was shot dead after the crime.
The terrorist militia "Islamic State" (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to the public prosecutor's office, this alleged confession was pure opportunism, despite the perpetrator's radicalization, and that there was no connection to IS.
Since September, a special court in Paris has been examining the attack in Nice.
More than 2000 relatives and victims acted as joint plaintiffs.
For four weeks, they reported in court about their memories of the attack and the traces that the act of terrorism left on them.
Although the assassin was killed by the police at the time, the preparation of his crime and his attitude were an essential part of the process.
Prosecutors concluded that the man had much more than just curiosity about ISIS.
He had watched numerous videos of the terrorist militia being beheaded and conducted intensive - at some point daily - research on what was happening in Syria and Iraq, on calls for terror, on IS and Al-Qaeda, as well as on the stimulant Captagon, which is considered a "jihadist drug".
"The perpetrator very clearly wanted to give (the attack) a jihadist dimension," the prosecution said in closing.
More soon on spiegel.de.
asc/AFP