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Nice attacker plotted for months and had accomplices – prosecutor Nice attacker 'plotted for months and had accomplices'
(about 1 hour later)
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the man who drove a truck into a crowd on the promenade in Nice on Bastille Day, killing 84 people, plotted his attack for months and had accomplices, the Paris prosecutor has said. The French-Tunisian man who drove a lorry into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84 people and injuring hundreds more, had help planning the attack, Paris prosecutor François Molins has revealed.
François Molins said five suspects currently in custody were facing preliminary terrorism charges for their alleged roles in helping Bouhlel. Evidence from mobile phones and computer records suggested that Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was not a recently radicalised “lone wolf”, as previously thought, but had several accomplices and had planned his attack for up to a year.
The suspects are four men two French-Tunisians, a Tunisian and an Albanian and one woman of dual French-Albanian nationality, Molins said. Molins told a press conference on Thursday that after the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in January 2015, in which 12 people died, Bouhlel sent a text message to one suspect that read: “I am not Charlie. I’m happy they have brought some of Allah’s soldiers to finish the job.”
People close to Bouhlel said he had shown no signs of radicalisation until very recently. But Molins said information from Bouhlel’s phone showed searches and photos that indicated that Bouhlel had been preparing for an attack since 2015. The prosecutor revealed what he described as “significant advances” in the inquiry, as four men and a woman suspected of helping Bouhlel appeared before a judge in Paris accused of being involved in a terrorist operation.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, though authorities have said they had not found signs that the extremist group directed it. The suspects, whose full names were not given, were still being questioned by an anti-terrorism judge in Paris as Molins gave details of their alleged contact with the attacker.
Earlier on Thursday, French officials defended the government’s security measures in Nice on the night of the Bastille Day attack, even as the interior minister acknowledged that national police were not, as he had claimed before, stationed at the entrance to closed-off boulevard during the attack. They are expected to be formally mise en examen – put under investigation – as accomplices to murder and being part of a terrorist organisation, and to be remanded in police custody for further questioning.
Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s clarification comes after a newspaper accused French authorities of lacking transparency in their handling of the massacre. The five were in contact with Bouhlel shortly before he ploughed into crowds gathered along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice for the traditional Bastille Day fireworks last week. Seconds before Boulel drove the truck for almost 2km, targeting groups of people and leaving bodies in his wake, he sent two “odious messages” that appeared to have been pre-recorded on his mobile phone, Molins said.
Cazeneuve said Thursday that only local police, who are more lightly armed, were guarding the entrance to the Promenade des Anglais when Bouhlel drove a 19- ton truck onto the sidewalk in Nice before mowing down pedestrians who had gathered to watch a holiday fireworks show. The prosecutor said it was increasingly evident that Bouhlel’s attack was premeditated and that he had logistical and planning support from the five, with whom he had been in regular contact. “He seems to have envisaged and developed his criminal plans several months before carrying them out,” Molins said.
Cazeneuve then launched an internal police investigation Thursday into the handling of the Nice attack. The five people include a married couple from Albania, accused of supplying the automatic pistol that Bouhlel used to shoot at police, two French-Tunisian men and a Tunisian man. None were known to the French security or intelligence services and only one, a 41-year-old French-Tunisian, had a criminal record, for robbery, theft, assault and drug offences.
The criticism comes as the national assembly extended France’s state of emergency for six months. It is the fourth time the security measures have been extended since Islamic State attacked Paris in November last year, killing 130 people. “The investigation since the night of July 14 has kept moving forward and allowed us not only to confirm again the premeditated nature of Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s deadly act, but also to establish that he benefited from support and had accomplices in the preparation and carrying out of his criminal act,” Molins said on Thursday.
He added that photographs and searches on the attacker’s mobile phone included pictures of the Bastille Day fireworks in July 2015, and an article referring to the “magic potion called Captagon”, which Molins said was a drug “used by certain jihadists preparing terrorist attacks”.
The prosecutor said he was considering bringing charges of “participating in a terrorist organisation with a view to preparing one or more crimes against the public” against the five suspects.
At the home of one of the men, detectives reportedly found drugs, €2,600 in cash and 11 mobile phones, French press reported. One photograph discovered by investigators showed one of the suspects in the cab of the lorry used to carry out the massacre, taken three hours before the attack.
Molins confirmed that although Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the massacre, detectives have not yet established a direct link between Boulel, the suspects and the terror group.
France’s interior minister has acknowledged that there was no national police presence at the entrance to the pedestrianised walkway in Nice during the attack. In what represents a backtracking on his previous claim that national police were present, Bernard Cazeneuve said local police, who are more lightly armed, were guarding the entrance through which Bouhlel drove his truck.
Cazeneuve had earlier defended himself against charges in French newspaper Libération that he lied publicly about there being a national police presence at the entry point, with their cars blocking the road. In a statement, Cazeneuve accused the paper of conspiracy theories and maintained that several “heroic” national police — who shot dead the attacker — were stationed further down the promenade.
The local prefect, Adolphe Colrat, had also disputed the paper’s report. “At no moment have the authorities lied,” Colrat said, adding that the row was “unfair and damaging” for the police.
Cazeneuve has ordered an investigation and a “technical evaluation” of security on the promenade on 14 July.
Meanwhile, the 51-year-old motorcyclist who tried to stop Bouhlel spoke about his experience to Nice-Matin. Franck (his surname is not given), an airport worker, said: “I wanted to stop him at any price … my aim was to get to the [driver’s] cabin. When I drew level with him, I asked myself, what are you going to do with your poor scooter, so I threw it against the lorry and continued to run after him.
“Finally I grabbed on to the cabin. I was on the steps at the level of the open window facing him. I hit and hit him and hit him again. With all my strength, with my left hand in the face. He said nothing. He didn’t even flinch. He had his gun in his hand but the pistol was not working. I had the impression he was trying to fiddle with it, I don’t know. He pointed it at me and pulled on the trigger but it didn’t work.
“I was ready to die. I was conscious and ready to die to stop him and I kept hitting him. I tried to drag him out through the window because I couldn’t open the bloody door. I kept hitting him. Then he finally hit me on the head with the butt.”