“Extremely violent” but “likely to enlighten the court”, the CCTV images of the Nice attack, which killed 86 people on July 14, 2016, will be broadcast Thursday “at the end of the morning” at the trial which is being held in Paris since September 5, the president of the special assize court announced on Wednesday. They can be seen by everyone, including the public and the press, also in the broadcast room in Nice.
President Laurent Raviot thus considered that these videos could “enlighten the court” on the criminal act committed by Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel at the wheel of a ram truck on the Promenade des Anglais, but also “on the number of victims” and help him to “appreciate the notion of proximity and perimeter of the attack”.
If certain defendants, three of whom are on trial for “terrorist association”, are found guilty, the court will have to assess, during a civil hearing, the admissibility of the approximately 2,000 registered civil party applications.
A “substantial order service” in the rooms
The president also explained that he had “taken into account the fact that the viewing of this seal, requested by a large number of civil parties, (could) contribute to their understanding of the event and the reparation process”.
The court also rejected a request for a partial closed session made by one of the lawyers for the civil parties, which would have excluded the press and the public from the projection of these images. But a “consequent order service” will be present in the courtroom and in the retransmission rooms, in Paris as in Nice, so that “there is no possibility of capturing these images”.
“We must be aware of the dread that these images will cause”
Filmed by twenty CCTV cameras in the city of Nice, they start at 9:34 p.m., “from the moment Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel arrives at his truck” parked in the street, the policeman who had been responsible for exploiting them explained on Friday. They include a 41-minute break, during which “we lose sight of it”, before the attack, lasting 4 minutes 17, from the moment the 19-tonne appears, “all lights off”, on the sidewalk of the Promenade des Anglais, at 10:33 p.m.
The president of the court himself previewed the video on Tuesday evening in the company of the court, defense lawyers and many civil party lawyers. “People who are hesitant to look at these images, I urge them not to do so,” he warned. “I think we have to be aware of the fear that these images will cause,” also indicated one of the general counsel, Jean-Michel Bourlès.