In Ivory Coast, eleven individuals have been found guilty and given life sentences by a court for their complicity in a nearly seven-year-old attack on a tourist beach that claimed the lives of 19 people and injured dozens more.
The punishments for the assault on March 13, 2016, the country’s first of its kind, were announced by Judge Charles Bini on Wednesday in Abidjan, its commercial centre.
Three men carrying assault rifles assaulted the beach at Grand-Bassam, a resort 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Abidjan that is popular with Europeans, and then targeted hotels and restaurants in a raid reminiscent of one that took place in Tunisia the year before.
When security personnel shot and killed the attackers, the 45-minute bloodbath came to a stop. Nine of the 19 fatalities were Ivorians, while four were French nationals. Additionally dead were a German, a Lebanese, a Macedonian, a Malian, a Nigerian, and one victim whose identity was unknown. At least 33 victims suffered injuries.
The attack was attributed to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a North African branch of al-Qaeda.
It said that the attack was carried out in retaliation for French and allies’ military activities in the Sahel and that Ivory Coast was the target because it had given fighters to Mali.
Twelve persons were apprehended, three of whom were thought to be the attackers’ compatriots and were held in Mali.
Eighteen people were charged in Ivory Coast with acts of “terrorism”, murder, attempted murder, criminal concealment, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, “and complicity in these deeds”, Public Prosecutor Richard Adou said.
“We have to discourage the followers of these terrorist acts,” he said, summing up his case before Wednesday’s verdict. “We have been confronted with horror and barbarity.”