French officials rushed to defend the government’s security measures Thursday even as the country’s interior minister acknowledged that national police were not, as he had claimed before, stationed at the entrance to closed-off Nice boulevard during the Bastille Day truck attack that killed 84 people.
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The southern French city is still reeling from the July 14 attack in which 31-year-old man Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel plowed a rented truck into revelers enjoying holiday fireworks on the seaside promenade.
The suspected accomplices – four men and one woman – were in custody in Nice, Francois Molins told a news conference, and were indicted Thursday on various terrorism charges.
Ramzi A.is another one of the five who have been placed in custody; he has been indicted for arms offenses in association with terrorism.
A suspect had filmed the aftermath of the attack, the Paris prosecutor said.
Many people interviewed by investigators described the Tunisian father of three as “someone who did not practise the Muslim religion, ate pork, drank alcohol, took drugs and had an unbridled sexual activity”, Molins said earlier this week. Mohamed Oualid G. had sent Lahouaiej Bouhlel a message after the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 celebrating the shootings and saying the “soldiers of allah finished their work”.
A text message from the same man found on Bouhel’s phone said: “I’m not Charlie; I’m happy”. The crowd paid their respects to the 84 victims killed during the Bastille Day attack.
The Islamic State terrorist group previously claimed responsibility for the attack.
Joggers, cyclists and sun-seekers are back on Nice’s famed Riviera coast, a further sign of normal life returning on the Promenade des Anglais where dozens were killed in last week’s Bastille Day truck attack.
The Islamic State has claimed Bouhlel as a “soldier” of the organization, but has claimed the person rather than the act. Using witness statements and photos, Liberation showed Thursday that only one local police auto was stationed at the entrance to the Nice boulevard on July 14.
Speaking from Ireland, French President Francois Hollande said the inquiry was to seek answers about whether security plans were sufficient, but called for calm.
A French official said Thursday he may have plotted the attack for at least a year and is believed to have had help from at least five others.
The attack came just as France was preparing to lift the state of emergency in place since the November attacks in Paris, prompting an immediate reversal of course.
The security laws allow the authorities to carry out searches by day or night, without a warrant from a judge, and to place people under house arrest.
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Nice-Matin newspaper said lawyers acting for the city authorities had asked the local prosecutor’s office to put the CCTV images under sequestration so they could not be destroyed.
