More than 80 people died when a Tunisian man, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, ploughed a lorry into crowds out celebrating Bastille Day on 14 July.
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French counter-extremism judges have formally charged five suspects in connection with the truck attack in the French Riviera city of Nice, the Paris prosecutor said late Thursday. Molins’ office, which oversees terrorism investigations, opened a judicial inquiry Thursday into a battery of charges for the suspects, including complicity to murder and possessing weapons tied to a terrorist enterprise.
On Thursday, parliament finalised the adoption of a bill extending France’s state of emergency for a further six months after it was toughened up by the rightwing-dominated Senate.
Hollande increased military support for Iraq in its fight against IS extremists as a result of the Nice attack, and French lawmakers extended a state of emergency in place since the deadly November 13 Islamic State attacks on Paris.
Bouhlel was killed by police after barrelling his 19-ton truck down Nice’s famed Promenade des Anglais for some two kilometres.
Those detained are four men: Ramzi A. and Mohamaed Pualid G. who identified as Franco-Tunisians, Chokri C. who is identified as Tunisian, and an Albanian, Artan.
The Bouhlel criminal record shows that he was born in Tunisia however had a grant to live and work in France.
People close to Bouhlel said he had shown no signs of radicalization until very recently.
Pictures of Oualid apparently taken in the truck used in the attack were also found on Bouhlel’s phone.
“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.
Furthermore, at 10:27 p.m., just before Bouhlel went on his reckless rampage through the waterfront, he allegedly sent a text message to Ramzi A. talking about the firearm he procured, and he added he meant to obtain five more from Ramzi’s girlfriend.
The message read: “I am not Charlie. I am happy. They have brought in the soldiers of Allah to finish the job”.
It also emerged that one of the five suspects in custody, a Tunisian named Mohamed Oualid G., 40, had filmed the scene shortly after the carnage, as it crawled with paramedics and journalists.
Investigators also found a message in Bouhlel’s phone from Oualid on January 10 2015 – roughly a year after attacks on the Charlie Hebdo weekly which spawned the hashtag “I am Charlie” in support of those killed.
Earlier Thursday, French officials defended the government’s security measures in Nice on the night of the attack, even as the interior minister acknowledged that national police were not, as he had claimed before, stationed at the entrance to the closed-off boulevard during the attack.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s clarification comes after a newspaper accused French authorities of lacking transparency in their handling of the massacre.
In July 2015 he took photos of the crowd at the Bastille Day fireworks display, as well as another crowd watching a concert on the Promenade Des Anglais three days later.
Police shot Bouhlel after he dashed down the crowded Promenade des Anglais for very almost a mile, hitting individuals who had accumulated to watch firecrackers.
And President Francois Hollande is holding a special security meeting Friday.
“There’s no room for polemics, there’s only room for transparency, ” he said.
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In this aerial view taken from video, part of the miles long queue of traffic outside Dover, England, waiting to cross the English Channel into France, Saturday July 23, 2016, as France is under a state of emergency. Kamailoudini Tagba is UNESCO scholarship Alumni, interested in International Relations studies and Security Studies.
