The five suspects will be presented to anti-terrorism judges later Thursday and Molins said prosecutors had requested they be charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, among other crimes.
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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.
Francois Molins had said earlier on Thursday that Bouhlel had planned the attack for months and carried it out with the assistance of the five suspects. Only one of them, Ramzi A, a 22-year-old Franco-Tunisian who was born in Nice, had a criminal record for robbery and drug offences.
Like Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, none of those detained were known to French intelligence prior to the attack.
Ramzi had previous convictions for drugs and petty crime.
Five accomplices were arrested in the aftermath of the attack and are being investigated on terror charges. The rampage ended when Bouhlel was shot dead by police.
On Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s phone, investigators found pictures of fireworks and of the Nice promenade from a year ago, as well as an image of an article about Captagon, an amphetamine that has been associated in some news reports with Islamic State fighters.
The revelations come as the French government continues to be plagued by questions over possible security failings, prompting authorities to launch an investigation into potential oversights.
Meanwhile, France’s interior minister said there were no national police stationed at the entrance to the walkway in Nice when the Bastille Day truck attack took place.
Hollande said Cazeneuve, who has shrugged off opposition calls to resign, had his “full confidence” and announced he would ship weapons to Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) group which claimed the attack. But Molins said information from Bouhlel’s phone showed searches and photos that suggested he could have been preparing an attack as far back as 2015. 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.
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 …”
Bouhlel had photos from July 11 and 13 of “Mohamed Oualid G.” in the driver’s seat of the truck used in the attack, Molins said, adding that authorities have found DNA of “Chokri C.” in that truck. “I am happy. They have brought in the soldiers of Allah to finish the job”.
Molins said that one of the suspects now in police custody captured footage of the crime scene the day before the attack took place.
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The letter did not provide a reason for the request, the city official said, but Le Figaro newspaper said national police are concerned that the images would leak out and be used for jihadi propaganda. Eighty-four people were killed and about 200 were injured.
