A Tunisian extremist is imprisoned for life for killing 3 people in a French basilica in 2020

People watch the sea on the promenade des anglais in Nice, southern France, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

LYON, France (AP) — A Tunisian national was sentenced late Wednesday to life imprisonment without parole, France’s most severe sentence possible, over the killing of three people in a basilica in the French Riviera city of Nice in 2020, one of multiple attacks that year linked to Islamic extremism.

Brahim Aouissaoui, 25, was charged with terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder. He admitted responsibility for the attack during the trial in Paris, even though he had said he couldn’t remember anything since then. He explained that he wanted to avenge Muslims killed around the world by Western nations.

On Oct. 29, 2020, Aouissaoui killed worshippers Nadine Vincent, 60, and Simone Barreto, a 44-year-old French-Brazilian woman, and church worker Vincent Loquès, 55. Police officers fired at him as he lunged at them, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and wielding a knife. He was shot and seriously wounded.

The attack was the third in less than two months that French authorities attributed to Islamic extremists, and prompted the government to raise its security alert to the maximum level. It came while France was holding a trial over the 2015 attacks on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of Islam’s prophet. France at the time faced anger from many Muslims around the world for defending the cartoons and for its policies against Islamic radicalism.

France remains on high alert today, notably for domestic extremist threats stoked on online platforms.

Nicolas Vaux-montagny, The Associated Press