The five suspects were arrested in France after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel rammed a truck into a crowd which enjoyed a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people and injuring more than 300, AFP reported on Friday.
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The attacker was aided by a tight-knit team of associates, who helped him sketch out his plan and acquired weapons for him, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said on Thursday.
Retreating from previous claims, Cazeneuve said Thursday that only local police, who are more lightly armed, were guarding the entrance when Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 20-ton truck onto the sidewalk in Nice before mowing down pedestrians who had watched a fireworks show. He also fired an automatic pistol at police before they shot and killed him.
Investigators initially said Bouhlel appeared to have undergone a lightning-quick radicalisation but the picture emerging is of a long-planned attack. None of the individuals were previously known to intelligence services.
Ramzi A. and two others, listed as “C. and Shokri Mohamed Walid G” were indicted for “complicity of murder in an organized band in connection with a terrorist enterprise, complicity in attempts to murder in an organized band and in relation with a terrorist enterprise, complicity of assassination attempts on person holding public authority in relation to a terrorist undertaking”, prosecutors said in a statement. Four days earlier, the prosecutor said, a text message from the same man found on a phone seized at Bouhlel’s said: “I’m not Charlie; I’m happy”.
A French security official said this may have been intentional, in response to ISIS suggestions to some followers in the West that they hide their radical faith to stay off police radar.
Le Figaro managed to obtain the copy of the document in which SDAT, citing articles of the criminal and penal codes, demands the city authorities delete “completely” almost 24 hours of the attack captured on cameras on the Promenade des Anglais. Investigators have now said that man is Mohamed Oualid G.
Questions continued to be raised about security measures in Nice on the night of the attack, which killed not only French citizens who had been celebrating their national holiday, but also people of 19 other nationalities, including citizens of Algeria, Brazil, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, and the United States.
France has extended its state of emergency until the end of January 2017.
The inquiry – to be headed by the police oversight body – was announced Thursday by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve after mounting criticism of the measures taken to ensure the celebrations were secure. “There is no place for polemics, there is only place for truth and transparency”, he said.
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“Delete the recordings between July 14, 2016 22:30 and July 15, 2016 18:00”, the documents demands. 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. The main roadblock at the start of the promenade was manned by six national police officers, who were “the first to confront the deadly lorry”, he said, adding that two police cars of the national police were stationed there.
