“At this stage of the investigation and based on various photographs it appears that Mohamed Bouhlel had premeditated his criminal attacks several months before the 14th of July”, his translated words said.
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The truck ploughed through the Bastille Day crowd, killing at least 84 people.
In Nice, investigators found a Kalashnikov rifle and a bag of ammunition in the basement of a 22-year-old man who is among five being held over links to Bouhlel.
Like Bouhlel, the five detained suspects were unknown to French intelligence and were not on their watch list before the attack, although Ramzi had convictions for small crimes and drugs, the prosecutor added.
The other suspects include 37-year-old Tunisian man Chokri C. and 40-year-old Mohamed Oualid G., a dual French-Tunisian citizen who was born in Tunisia.
Police have opened an internal investigation into last Thursday night’s events. “I am happy they have brought soldiers of Allah to finish the job”.
President Francois Hollande said the conclusions of that investigation will be known next week, speaking from Dublin where he was meeting with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny about the British decision to leave the European Union.
French justice officials said the swoop was not directly connected with the attack in Nice.
The man was identified as Mohamed Bouhlel, a Nice resident hailing from the Tunisian town of Msaken.
The newspaper Libération reported Thursday that only one municipal police auto was positioned at the spot where Lahouaiej Bouhlel barreled through and on to the promenade, and it said that although state and city officials had agreed on – and stuck to – a security plan for Bastille Day, the government misrepresented those measures after the attack.
The five are now in custody and face preliminary terrorism charges for their alleged roles in the attack. Investigators also found photos of Mohamed Oualid in the truck used to carry out the attack on July 11 and 13, while video surveillance placed Chokri with Bouhlel in the truck just hours before the attack.
On May 26 previous year, he took a photo of an article about the drug Captagon, an amphetamine used by jihadists in Syria. The so-called “Islamic State” (IS) terrorist organization later claimed responsibility for the attack, though authorities have yet to uncover evidence suggesting Bouhlel – who was shot dead at the scene of the attack – was ever in direct contact with the group.
His comments came in response to French newspaper Libération’s accusations that Cazeneuve had lied about the presence of the national police officers and cars, and that authorities lacked transparency about the attack.
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Parliament this week extended the state of emergency in place since the November Paris attacks for a fourth time.
