Eight sentenced over France truck massacre

Eight people have been convicted by a court in France for their roles in helping the orchestration of a terror attack on the coastal city of Nice in 2016 that left 86 people dead.

A truck was driven into a crowd watching a public holiday firework display on July 14, and in just over four minutes, 86 people were killed and 450 others were injured. Thirty-three of the victims were foreign nationals and 15 were children. At the time, then-president Francois Hollande said the attack was of "an undeniable terrorist nature".

The truck driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was a Tunisian national with French residency, and was known to the police as a petty criminal, but not as someone who had been radicalized. He was killed by police on the night of the attack.

Seven men and one woman, four of them Albanian nationals, had been on trial for the last three and a half months, on charges relating to their involvement with and connection to the attacker.

The trial took place in the purpose-built courtroom constructed for hearings relating to the 2015 terror attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead, just a few months before the killings in Nice. There was also a video link for people to participate in the hearing from Nice.

The court was told that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel would not have been able to carry out the killings without the "precious help "of three of the defendants, and although the judge acknowledged that not all of them necessarily had a clear connection to terrorism or knew exactly what he had planned, sentenced them to prison terms ranging from two to 18 years.

Two of the defendants, Mohamed Ghraeib and Chokri Chafroud, were described by the prosecution as having "an intense relationship "with the attacker, and received the longest sentences.

Ghraieb had known him for 15 years, and the court heard that the pair had made more than 1,200 telephone communications in just one year.

The attack followed on from other deadly incidents in France and Belgium involving the Islamic State group, but although Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had expressed support for the group, and it claimed he was one of its operatives, there was no conclusive proof that he had any links to the organization.

After weeks of often harrowing testimony from witnesses and those affected by the attack, survivors welcomed the verdicts.

"I am satisfied to see that the two main defendants have been sentenced to 18 years in prison, even if it is nothing compared to what we have experienced," said one survivor, Laurence Bray.

"This verdict is a relief. Now, there will be a big void."

Another, Caroline Villani, said: "It won't bring my family back, my mother, my son, but it's a small victory that feels good."