Seven people have been jailed for life following a trial over two 2015 terror attacks in Tunisia which killed 60 people, including 31 Britons.
Samir Ben Amor, a lawyer for one of the 44 defendants, said the verdicts were handed down over a massacre at the popular Sousse resort and another deadly attack on the country’s famous Bardo Museum.
Thirty Britons were killed in the mass shooting in Sousse which left 38 people dead, while another UK citizen died in the Bardo assault, which killed 22 in total.
Other defendants received jail terms ranging from 16 years to six months, while the charges against 27 of the suspects were dismissed, according to Mr Ben Amor.
None of the defendants received the maximum penalty of capital punishment for a range of charges that include premeditated murder, threatening national security and belonging to an extremist-linked group.
The prosecution has said it will appeal the verdicts.
The suspected mastermind of both attacks, Chamseddine Sandi, has not yet been caught and is thought to be hiding in Libya.
Police say the defendants denied having participated directly in the March and June 2015 attacks during their questioning, but several of them acknowledged having provided logistical assistance to Sandi.
On March 18 2015 at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, 22 people were killed by extremists. Two of the gunmen were killed by police.
Three months later, on June 26 in the coastal city of Sousse, attacker Aymen Rezgui walked onto the beach of the Imperial Hotel and used an assault rifle to shoot tourists, killing 38 people, including 30 Britons.
Rezgui, a Tunisian student who trained with Libyan militants, was killed about 15 minutes later by police.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for those attacks, which devastated the country’s tourism sector as travel agencies pulled out and governments issued travel warnings.
Tourism has since partially bounced back after Tunisia’s government implemented a series of security measures to protect popular destinations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel