The five suspects will be presented to anti-terrorism judges later today and Mr Molins said prosecutors had requested they be charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, among other crimes. The defendants include two French-Tunisian nationals, a Tunisian national, an Albanian national and an Albanian-French national.
Advertisement
Police interviewed hundreds of people close to Bouhlel, who said he had shown no interest in his religion until recently.
Bouhlel received a text from one of the alleged accomplices a few days after the January 2015 Islamist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a Jewish deli in Paris saying: “I am not Charlie…”
At this stage of the investigation, the prosecutor said, Bouhlel “seemed to have envisaged and ripened his criminal project several months before taking action”, he said.
Telephone contents were used to link the five to Bouhlel, and allegedly to support roles in the carnage.
The 31 year old French-Tunisian had grenades, a pistol and assault rifles in the lorry he had parked on Promenade des Anglais hours earlier after police allowed him to because he said he was delivering ice cream. “I am glad, they brought in Allah’s soldiers to finish the job”.
In the wake of the attack, people around the world adopted the slogan “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) in solidarity with the victims at the satirical newspaper.
France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has acknowledged there was no national police presence at the entrance to the promenade at the time.
Investigators continue to work at the scene near the heavy truck that ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores who were celebrating the Bastille Day, July 14 national holiday on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, July 15, 2016.
Cazeneuve launched an internal police probe into security measures taken for the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice shortly after Thursday’s backtrack.
President Francois Hollande said the conclusions of that investigation will be known next week, speaking from Dublin where he was meeting with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny about the British decision to leave the European Union.
Hollande said that “there’s no room for polemics”. “The necessary, serious preparations had been made for the July 14 festivities”.
Using witness statements and photos in its Thursday edition, Liberation showed that only one local police auto was stationed at the entrance to the walkway.
The paper quotes local Nice police officer Yves Bergerat, who said that guns and bullets of the local force aren’t even equipped “to puncture the tires”, let alone shatter the windshield of a truck that size.
Advertisement
Lawmakers also adopted a law extending a state of emergency for six months, after it was toughened up by the right-dominated Senate. The security measure had been in place since the November 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 victims and were claimed by the Islamic State group.
