The trial of suspected terrorists in the 2015 attack on Tunisia’s National Bardo Museum reopened on Friday.
Several of the suspects in the attack that left 22 dead testified as the trial started in earnest, after five previous sessions over the last 18 months that had been taken up by procedural issues.
The hearing was relayed by video to Paris for French victims' families.
Among the 19 defendants who appeared in court were friends of suspected mastermind Chamseddine Sandi, including his brother Achraf Sandi, said AFP.
A security guard and 21 foreign tourists, including four French nationals, four Italians, three Japanese and two Spaniards, were gunned down in the March 18, 2015 attack by two assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles.
Dozens of others were wounded in the assault in Tunis, while the two gunmen were shot dead. It was one of several attacks in Tunisia that have been claimed by the ISIS terror group.
The first suspect questioned in court, Mahmoud Kechouri, a 33-year-old laborer from a working-class district of Tunis, said he had helped with planning for the attack, including readying mobile phones for Chamseddine Sandi, a neighbor and longtime friend.
Kechouri said he was radicalized a decade ago but had not joined comrades who travelled to neighboring Libya for training because he was the family breadwinner.
Using Google Earth and social media, he said he had scoped a number of potential targets, including police stations and Tunisian politicians, before the Bardo National Museum was selected, said AFP.
After the attack, he had used the Telegram encrypted message service to keep Chamseddine Sandi informed of the investigation into the attack, before the fugitive was killed in a US air strike in Libya in February 2016, according to Tunisian media.
The defendants, who stand accused of taking part in preparations for the attack, say they had only discussed ideas with friends. Several allege they were tortured in detention.
At the request of victims' relatives, Tunisian judicial authorities allowed the hearing to be relayed to Paris with the accused only seen from behind, saving more than 60 civil plaintiffs from having to travel to Tunisia for the trial.
The suspects in the Tunis assault could be sentenced to death if found guilty but a moratorium on judicial executions has been in effect since 1991. A security officer is also on trial for failing to assist the targeted tourists.
