Appeal trial of the Nice attack: who are the accused who claim incomprehension ?

The appeal trial for the attack in Nice on July 14, 2016 begins before the Paris Special Assize Court this Monday, April 22. Two of the condemned, Mohamed Ghraieb and Chokri Chafroud, appealed after the first trial.

This Monday, April 22, 2024, the appeal trial of two relatives of the # Author of the Nice ram truck attack on July 24, 2016. Mohamed Ghraieb, 48-year-old Franco-Tunisian and Chokri Chafroud, 44-year-old Tunisian, had ;té sentenced to death 18 years of imprisonment, out of 20 years incurred, for participation in a criminal terrorist association. The author of the attack which left 86 dead, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was arrested. youé by the police on the day of the tragedy.

Ghraieb and Chafroud, two acquaintances of the jihadist

At the time of its verdict, the court of first instance estimated that: that Mohamed Ghraieb and Chokri Chafroud had participated in the to the project of Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. During the debates, the two accused always proclaimed that they were their innocence. Their lawyers will plead for acquittal. As a reminder, Mohamed Ghraieb appeared before the court. spontaneously to investigators the day after the attack. The latter knew Lahouaiej-Bouhlel when he was young in Tunisia and worked as a night watchman in a hotel in the center of Nice in July 2016. For his part, Chokri Chafroud had indicated that having known the terrorist in August 2015 upon his arrival in France. He worked on construction sites but did not have permanent housing. 

The accused claim "not to have understood" the meaning of certain SMS

For the two accused, a similar element of their defense is obvious, the incomprehension at the time of the receipt of SMS messages from Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. Ghraieb had numerous telephone exchanges with the terrorist the year preceding the attack. On the other hand, he always denied having provided him with a weapon, and claimed that he had not provided him with a weapon. "not having understood" the meaning of one of the SMS sent by Lahouaiej-Bouhlel on July 5, 2016, referring to a truck rental.

Same sound of the bell on the other side of the second accused, Chokri Chafroud. He had declared, during the first trial, after having received an SMS mentioning a truck rental agency, " not having understood it, like many messages" of the jihadist, whose message senté on July 14, just before the attack, in which there is talk of a delivery of weapons for "Chokri and his friends" and an action the following month. Chokri Chafroud had already had difficulty à justify his exchanges with the terrorist, on the social network Facebook, in April 2016. He had notably written: “Load the truck, put 2,000 tonnes in it iron and fuck, cut the brakes my friend, and I look. 

A trial until June 14, 2024

In its first instance verdict, the special assize court noted that: an "ideological convergence" between Ghraieb and the jihadist. He "knew he was contributing to the preparation of a terrorist act" she noted. For Chafroud, the court had considered him "as a true instigator of the attack not in the religious or ideological motives of his action, but in the choice of his operational mode" . The trial will take place five days a week, from Monday 9:30 a.m. to Friday evening, from April 22 to June 14, 2024, except May 10 and 20.