Two accomplices of 2016 Nice terrorist attacks appeal convictions

Their appeal comes weeks after a French judge sentenced eight people to prison after a Muslim suspect drove his truck into a crowd celebrating the July 14 national holiday.

31-year-old Tunisian Mohamed Rafayeji Boukhrel was shot dead by police after he rampaged on a seaside embankment for four minutes, killing 86 people and injuring more than 450 others.

Two suspects, Mohamed Ghraieb and Chokri Chafroud, were sentenced to 18 years in prison earlier this month for aiding the attackers.

A judge ruled based on phone calls and messages between the three days days before the massacre that he had turned to Islamic extremism and should have known he might have carried out the attack.

Greiev and Chafroud, who denied the charges in months-long trials, are now appealing, according to the National Counterterrorism Prosecutor.

The other six suspects, who were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to 12 years, decided not to appeal, prosecutors said.

France has been plagued by a wave of Islamist terrorist attacks since the January 2015 killings of a satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a Jewish supermarket in Paris. It is often attributed to IS and other jihadist ‘lone wolves’ attackers acting in the name of his group.

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