(FILES) An identity picture of the Nice assailant Brahim Aouissaoui, who a day earlier killed three people and wounded several others in the southern French city of Nice, is pictured at his family home in the Tunisian city of Sfax, on October 30, 2020. Brahim Aouissaoui, accused of murdering three people in the basilica in Nice on October 29, 2020, was sentenced on February 26, 2025, by the special assize court in Paris to life imprisonment with an incompressible security period, the heaviest sentence in the penal code. (Photo by FAMILY HANDOUT / AFP)
A French court on Wednesday sentenced a Tunisian man to life in prison without parole for killing three people with a knife in a church in the southern city of Nice in 2020.
Brahim Aouissaoui, 25, this week admitted he was responsible for the attack but claimed he did not remember exactly what happened.
The murderous rampage on October 29, 2020 was one of a number of deadly incidents in France that have been blamed on Islamist radicals since 2015.
According to prosecutors, armed with a kitchen knife, Aouissaoui almost decapitated Nadine Vincent, a 60-year-old worshipper, stabbed 44-year-old Franco-Brazilian mother Simone Barreto Silva around 25 times and slit the throat of sacristan Vincent Loques, 55, a father of two daughters.
The verdict is in line with requests from prosecutors who had asked for a life sentence without the possibility of parole, the most severe punishment under French law.
Aouissaoui has claimed the killings were “legitimate” revenge for “the West” killing “innocent” Muslims.
One of the public prosecutors said earlier on Wednesday the defendant was inhabited by “jihadist ideology”.
“It’s not terrorism,” the accused cried out, prompting his own lawyer to ask him to be quiet.
Aouissaoui was seriously wounded when police shot him after the attack, and previously insisted he did not remember anything at all.
But his medical examination did not reveal any brain damage and a psychiatric assessment concluded that there was no impairment of his judgement at the time of the events.
Aouissaoui arrived in Europe from Tunisia the month before the attack, first crossing the Mediterranean to Italy and then going to France overland.
On the morning of the attack, Aouissaoui entered the Basilica of Notre Dame in the heart of Nice, carrying a copy of the Koran, three knives and two mobile phones, according to prosecutors.
He hails from a large family in the Tunisian city of Sfax.
His mother said he repaired motorcycles and described how he had taken to prayer in the years before he left.
The prosecutors said he had consumed alcohol and smoked cannabis before he became radicalised in late 2018.
AFP
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