Seven jailed for life over 2015 Tunis and Sousse terror attacks
The sentences have been handed out for attacks on a museum and a tourist resort where 60 people were killed.
Saturday 9 February 2019 20:49, UK
Seven jihadists have been given life sentences for attacks on a museum and beach resort in Tunisia in 2015 that killed 60 people, including 30 Britons.
Dozens of defendants have been brought before two separate trials over the shootings that occurred just months apart.
Three suspects were given life sentences for murder for the first attack in March 2015 at the Bardo Museum in the capital Tunis, where 21 foreign tourists and a Tunisian security guard were killed.
Four others were also jailed for life for a shooting rampage at the Port El Kantaoui resort near Sousse in June the same year when 38 people were killed. The victims were mainly British tourists.
Sentences of between six and 16 years were handed out to other suspects.
Prosecutors said the two attacks were closely linked. Islamic State said at the time that it was behind both attacks.
Samir Ben Amor, a lawyer for one of the 44 defendants, said charges against 27 of the suspects were dismissed but the prosecution is to appeal.
No-one received the maximum penalty of capital punishment.
The suspected mastermind of both attacks, Chamseddine Sandi, has never been caught and is thought to be hiding in Libya.
Police say the defendants denied participating directly in the attacks during questioning, but several of them acknowledged they had provided logistical assistance to Sandi.
British victims of the beach terror attack, along with relatives of those who died, launched legal action against holiday firm TUI last year.
Represented by legal firm Irwin Mitchell, the group of more than 80 people will challenge the adequacy of security at the Imperial Hotel at the resort and information provided to TUI customers about the level threat in Tunisia.
Irwin Mitchell hopes the civil proceedings will result in damages being awarded for clients.
In 2017, an inquest into the deaths of the British victims found they had been "unlawfully killed" but a coroner rejected a finding of neglect against tour firms and the hotel.
Judge Loraine-Smith also ruled the Tunisian police response was "at best shambolic and at worst cowardly".
Tunisia's tourism industry was devastated by the attacks but has been bolstered after the government introduced a number of measures to protect popular destinations.