A court in France has sentenced a Tunisian man to life in prison without parole for killing three people at a church in the southern city of Nice in 2020.
Brahim Aouissaoui, 25, went on trial earlier this month and admitted this week that he was responsible for the knife attack but claimed he did not remember exactly what happened.
The attack, on 29 October 2020, was one of a number of deadly incidents in France since 2015 that have been blamed on Islamist radicals.
The sentence is in line with requests from prosecutors who had asked for a life term without the possibility of parole, the most severe punishment under French law.
Aouissaoui claimed the deaths were "legitimate" revenge for "the west" killing "innocent" Muslims.
One of the public prosecutors said the defendant was inhabited by "jihadist ideology".
"It's not terrorism," Aouissaoui cried out, prompting his own lawyer to ask him to be quiet.
The accused was seriously wounded when police shot him after the attack.
He insisted that he did not remember anything from that day but his medical examination did not reveal any brain damage and a psychiatric assessment concluded that there was no impairment of his judgement at the time of the events.
Aouissaoui arrived in Europe from Tunisia the month before the attack, first crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Italy before travelling overland to France.
On the morning of the attack, he entered the Basilica of Notre-Dame in the heart of Nice, carrying a copy of the Koran, three knives and two mobile phones, according to prosecutors.
Aouissaoui hails from a large family in the Tunisian city of Sfax.
His mother described how he had taken to prayer in the years before he left for France.
Prosecutors said he had consumed alcohol and smoked cannabis before he became radicalised in late 2018.
