France convicts 8 in Bastille Day attack

PARIS — A French court on Tuesday convicted eight people charged in connection with a truck attack more than six years ago by an Islamic State sympathizer that killed 86 people celebrating Bastille Day in the French Riviera city of Nice.

The judge’s verdict followed 3½ months of sometimes heartwrenching testimony from survivors of the 2016 attack, who during the trial described the horrors and carnage they witnessed that Thursday summer night and the impact on their lives since.

The driver of the truck that plowed into crowds watching fireworks, Mohamed LahouaiejBouhlel, was killed by police the night of the attack.

The eight defendants, seven men and one woman, were convicted of helping him orchestrate a terrorist attack. The judge gave them prison sentences ranging from two to 18 years. Prosecutors had acknowledged not all of them had a clear connection to terrorism or knew what Lahouaiej-Bouhlel planned.

The pair most closely associated with Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, Mohamed Ghraeib and Chokri Chafroud, were convicted of terror charges and handed the longest sentences of 18 years.

Prosecutors said both had had “an intense relationship” with Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. Ghraieb had known the attacker for 15 years, attended the same gym and had 1,278 telephone communications with him in one year.

On July 14, 2016, thousands of people had packed Nice’s famed boardwalk on the Mediterranean coast to celebrate France’s national holiday. In 4 minutes and 17 seconds, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel rammed his 19-ton truck at full speed into a crowd of families, tourists and others on the picturesque Promenade des Anglais, killing 86 and leaving 450 others injured.