The prosecutor also said that Bouhlel’s interest in IS and other radical Islamist groups was rather recent.
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Eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris, the Nice attacker plowed a heavy truck into crowds on Bastille Day, killing 84 people and injured 300 others before being shot dead by police officers.
Mohamed Bouhlel killed 84 people after driving a 19-ton truck into a crowd which had been watching a fireworks display on the seafront during Bastille Day celebrations.
It also emerged that one of the five suspects in custody, a Tunisian named Mohamed Oualid G, had filmed the scene the day after the carnage, as it crawled with paramedics and journalists.
A 22-year-old Franco-Tunisian Ramzi A, 40-year-old Mohamed Oualid G, and a 37-year-old Tunisian national named Chokri C, were charged with acting as accomplices in “murder by a group with terror links”, while the other two, a 38-year-old Albanian man named Artan H and his wife, who is a French-Albanian identified as Enkeldja Z, are charged with “breaking the law on weapons in relation to a terrorist group”.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, though authorities have said they had not found signs that the extremist group directed it.
Mr Molins said photos on his phone showed he had likely staked out the event in 2015, and initial details of the investigation reveal he had been fascinated with jihad for some time. Bouhlel’s phone showed searches and photos that indicated that he was planning an attack since 2015, he said. “They brought the soldiers of Allah to finish the work”.
The message was dated three days after the January 2015 newsroom massacre at Charlie Hebdo, the satirical publication, and the worldwide movement of solidarity for the victims and France, “I’m Charlie”.
Paris: France’s government said on Thursday it had ordered an inquiry into policing on the night of last week’s deadly truck attack in Nice in a bid to dispel mounting criticism of security arrangements.
Video surveillance placed Chokri, who had no previous police record, with Bouhlel in the truck on the Promenade Des Anglais prior to the attack.
“When there is a tragedy, or in this case an attack with many dead. there will naturally be questions”, Hollande said during a visit to Dublin, adding that the conclusions of the police probe would be announced next week.
French President Francois Hollande on Thursday promised “truth and transparency” from an inquiry into allegations of lax security. He said any police “shortcomings” will be carefully addressed but defended French authorities’ actions.
“There’s no room for polemics, there’s only room for transparency”, he said.
France’s Socialist government has sparred repeatedly with opposing politicians on the right and far-right, especially local officials in Nice, over how many national and municipal officers were securing the promenade on the night of the attack and how they were spread out. Using witness statements and photos, Liberation showed on Thursday that only one local police auto was stationed at the entrance to the Nice boulevard on July 14.
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Cazeneuve accused the paper of conspiracy theories and said several “heroic” national police – who killed the attacker after an exchange of fire – were stationed further down the promenade.
