An anti-terrorism investigating judge ordered a trial this Friday before the special assize court against Brahim Aouissaoui, the suspect in the attack in the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption basilica, in Nice, on October 29, 2020, a- we learned from a source close to the file, confirming information from Nice morning. That morning, three people were fatally injured with knives.
The assailant, a 24-year-old Tunisian who claims to have retained no memory of the events, will be tried for “assassinations and attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise”, according to the indictment order.
The “determination of the deadly intention” of the assailant
The investigating judge followed the recommendations of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office. In its final indictment signed on September 7, the Pnat underlined the “determination of the deadly intention” of the attacker and the “terrorist nature of the facts”.
Brahim Aouissaoui affirmed throughout the investigations that he retained no memory of the facts. Faced with the anti-terrorism investigating judge who questioned him five times between April 6, 2021 and November 28, 2022, he replied: “I don’t remember”, “I have nothing to say”. “Normally, tomorrow, I will leave for France, the country of unbelievers and dogs,” he wrote to a contact a few days before the events.
Three victims aged 44 to 60
“A dismissal of the charges was requested concerning the acts of terrorist criminal association with a view to preparing crimes of harm to persons,” the Pnat specified. The “extensive investigations” carried out in France and Italy as well as “verifications” carried out in Tunisia did not in fact make it possible to determine that he had been incited to take action nor that he had benefited from a help in carrying out his project, it was written in the indictment. “We maintained until the end the illusion of a terrorist criminal association”, a “catch-all offense” allowing “maximum means and procedural tools”, reacted the suspect’s lawyer, Me Tewfik Bouzenoune.
According to the prosecution, on October 29, 2020, around 8:30 a.m., Brahim Aouissaoui, 21, entered the religious building armed with a knife with a blade 17 cm long. First, he practically decapitates Nadine Devillers, a 60-year-old churchgoer. Then, he stabbed the Franco-Brazilian Simone Barreto Silva, 44 years old, who took refuge in a restaurant before dying, and the sacristan Vincent Loquès, 55 years old, father of two daughters.