However, he said no clear link had been established between the father of three and the Islamic State group which claimed the Bastille Day carnage.
Advertisement
Bouhlel sent one of those people text messages just before the attack, the French security official said.
Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who announced 12,000 extra police reserves are being called up alongside the 120,000 police and soldiers already in place across the country, said Bouhlel appeared to have been radicalised only recently.
“We can not exclude that he was an unbalanced and very violent individual, and it seems that his psychology demonstrates these traits, was at one time, in a rapid radicalisation, (was) committed to this absolutely appalling crime”, Cazeneuve said on Monday (18 July). “In any case, these are the first elements that have come to light through the testimony of his acquaintances”.
Bouhlel’s estranged wife was arrested at her apartment Friday and released Sunday morning without charge, her attorney, Jean-Yves Garino, told CNN.
The group, which is under military pressure from forces opposed to it, considers France its main target given its military operations in the Middle East, and also because it is easier to strike than the United States, which is leading a coalition against it.
Lahouaiyej Bouhlel’s rapid radicalisation has puzzled investigators, and friends and family said he had not been an observant Muslim in the past.
Five suspects held in custody in relation to the Nice attack are being handed to investigating judges in Paris on Thursday.
The attacker then opened fire on people in the crowd before being shot dead by police. “It’s hard to say, but other lives will be lost”.
Internet searches on Bouhlel’s computer included Islamic propaganda chants, the terms “horrible deadly accidents”, and the recent attacks against the gay nightclub in Orlando, police officers in Dallas, and the killing of two police officials in Magnanville, outside of Paris.
All seven people taken in for questioning said Bouhlel was violent and unstable.
In what represents backtracking from previous claims, Cazeneuve said only local police, who are more lightly armed, were guarding the entrance when Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 19-metric ton (20-ton) truck onto the sidewalk.
The movie is a joint, American, French and British production and tells the story of a young French woman who is preparing an attack on the eve of the Bastille Day, and a Central Intelligence Agency agent played by Idriss Elba who is sent to Paris to stop her.
Nicolas Sarkozy continues to eye the French Presidency and trying to outbid the government in anti-terrorist determination.
“Each time he had a crisis, we took him to the doctor, who gave him medication”, Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej Bouhlel told BFM television, even showing journalists what he said was a document about his son’s psychiatric treatment.
Advertisement
Following the attack, tens of thousands of social media users stood in solidarity with victims using the hashtag #JeSuisNice and #LiberteEgaliteFraternite – the French national motto.
