Two civil parties delivered their story on Tuesday before the Paris Special Assize Court. For five weeks, more than 280 victims will testify, at the rate of fifteen per day.
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The trial of the attack on July 14, 2016 in Nice opened, Tuesday, September 20, its most intense, the most dreaded sequence too: that of the testimonies of the civil parties which will deposit their nightmare and nightmare at the bar and the memory of the deceased. With each mass attack trial, this page is the darkest, the most difficult to hear, the heaviest to wear. At the trial of the attacks of November 13, this five-week sequence had ended up drawing up a Kaleidoscopic fresco, woven by several hundred votes; The unique puzzle of a night of terror experienced from the inside.
Thursday, September 15, we have already seen the raw horror of the “crazy truck” of the Promenade des Anglais: the images of the massacre captured by the video surveillance cameras of the city had been projected on the screens of the court of Paris Special Assizes. We saw the compact crowd on the roadway, the families gathered for fireworks, onlookers unconscious of the danger that rushed on them, we saw the truck struck silhouettes and bounce on bodies like on a back … Now we will hear the story of those who survived.
This painful chapter of the Nice attack was gently opened: due to a change in the schedule, only two civil parties were heard on Tuesday. From Wednesday, and for five weeks, we will hear on average fifteen stories per day, fifteen fragments of pure terror told in the first person. Over these 280 testimonies, a torrent of mourning, traumatic memories, moments of bravery, physical and mental injuries, will pour out in the courtroom.
“A little girl has Started to pray “
Sandrine Bertolotto was 28 years old, she was 22, July 14, 2016. When she was younger, she participated in Miss competitions. She does not do anymore. “When you are afraid of crossing the street, you no longer do this kind of thing,” slips the young woman who will not cease, throughout her deposition, to proper a ring in her right hand. Her testimony is singular: Sandrine did not see the “crazy truck” that evening. She heard “noises”, “percussion”, “shots”, she saw panic, she imagined, fantasized, she ran, injured, then she hid, terrorized, persuaded that shootings were in progress throughout the city.
The young woman had found her companion at the time and friends on the walk to attend fireworks. While she was looking at smoke from the beach, she lost sight of her friends and found herself “blocked in front of a group of agglutinated people”. A man passes by screaming: “It’s the truck!”. Sandrine turns her back at 19 tonnes, she doesn’t understand what’s going on. She remembers hearing gunshots and thought of an attack. “Petrified”, she decides to “throw herself from the top of the prom ‘”, lands on the terrace of a beach restaurant below and is injured in an ankle and the arm.
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