A Berlin upper school class is in Nice in 2016 when the truck crashes into a crowd. A teacher and two students die. In court, a mother now addresses the accused directly.
The mother’s tears and her struggle for composure are the first to come out of the loudspeakers in the large hall of the Paris Palace of Justice, even before the joint plaintiff from Germany speaks the first words into the microphone. She traveled hundreds of kilometers to France to stand up for her daughter, who was killed in the 2016 terrorist attack on Nice’s seafront. Among the 86 fatalities of the allegedly Islamist-motivated truck attack were two students and a teacher from the Paula Fürst School in Berlin, who were on a senior school trip in the southern French city.
“It was the final class trip, she didn’t really want to go,” says the 44-year-old before the special court that is hearing the case for the attack. An interpreter translates the mother’s words. On the day itself, she was still on the phone with her daughter. “Usually she should come back the next day,” she says. “To me she was a little girl who had just turned 18 and who still wanted to see a lot of the world, it’s not fair.” And with a look at the accused in the hall, she adds: “I want the people who were there, who took part, not to come out. You are cruel.”
Seven men and one woman have to answer in the process as alleged supporters. Three of them are accused of membership in a terrorist organization. The accused face prison terms of between five years and life imprisonment. The court also wants to hear numerous other relatives and those affected in the coming weeks, there are more than 860 joint plaintiffs.
On July 14, 2016, the French national holiday, the Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a heavy truck into a crowd after the fireworks on the Promenade des Anglais. There were 86 dead, more than 200 people were injured, including another Berlin schoolgirl. Police officers shot the violent criminal. The terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the crime. Although the investigators found evidence that the perpetrator had radicalized to Islam, there was no connection to IS.
Moved and outraged, the mother tells the court that she initially found out nothing about her daughter’s fate from the Berlin school. She called to see if the class was affected. “Yes, and her daughter has disappeared,” she was told. A grueling wait without information began. “They came back, I only got my daughter’s suitcase, I wasn’t allowed to talk to the other students,” says the mother. The police picked up a toothbrush and a brush from her daughter – probably for identification via DNA.
On her own, she finally flew to Nice on the fourth day to look for her daughter. Embassy staff received them and they went to the police. “Then I found out there,” her daughter had died, she was told. “I want to see her,” she said, “she’s my daughter.” She was then allowed to see her daughter, but was not allowed to touch her.
Wanting to protect her child is probably why she doesn’t want a photo of herself projected onto the screen in court while she is testifying. “No, no photo,” she says firmly. Then a co-plaintiff lawyer wants to know from the German whether the high level of terror warnings in France was not an issue before the decision to go to Berlin. “No, they didn’t tell us anything, they said Nice is safe, otherwise I wouldn’t have sent my daughter there.”
Source: Stern
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