Côte d’Ivoire hands down four life terms for 2016 jihadist attack

CHANNELS 

A court in Côte d’Ivoire on Wednesday handed down life terms to four men convicted of abetting a jihadist attack on a resort that left 19 people dead.

The court in Abidjan, the country’s commercial hub, found the four “guilty of the deeds for which they are accused and sentences them to life imprisonment,” Judge Charles Bini announced.

The March 13, 2016 assault was the first jihadist attack in Côte d’Ivoire, one of West Africa’s economic powerhouses.

Three men wielding assault rifles stormed the beach at Grand-Bassam, a resort town 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Abidjan popular with Europeans, before attacking hotels and restaurants.

The 45-minute bloodbath ended when Ivorian security forces shot dead the three attackers.

The 19 people killed comprised nine Ivorians, four French citizens, a Lebanese, a German, a Macedonian, a Malian, a Nigerian and a person who could not be identified…