Five suspects have been formally charged over the July 14 truck attack in the French Riviera city that killed 84 people.
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The local authorities in Nice have refused a request by French anti-terror police to destroy CCTV images of Bastille Day attack last week in which a man drove a truck into a crowd, killing 84 persons. Lahouaiej Bouhlel was also not known to intelligence services.
But Mr Molins said fresh evidence from his phone and computer suggested he had likely planned the murderous attack “several months in advance” – even a year.
No other details were immediately available.
Thursday night [July 21, 2016], five people were given preliminary terrorism charges for their suspected parts in aiding Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in France’s third mass-casualty attack in just over 18 months.
Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s estranged wife was also arrested, but was released without charges on Sunday, as was a man who had been wrongly identified as a suspect, according to Audrey Delaunay, the man’s lawyer. The rampage ended when Bouhlel was shot dead by police.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel appeared to be a 31-year-old father-of-three, who was obsessed with keeping fit, martial arts and salsa dancing.
Meanwhile, authorities in Nice have refused a request from French anti-terror police to delete surveillance camera images of the attack, amid growing questions over the scale of the police presence at the time, the Associated Press reported.
A large, worldwide crowd had gathered at the waterfront in Nice for the fireworks display in honor of Bastille Day, one of France’s largest national holidays.
However, they may never get a definite answer as Bouhlel was killed by police after ramming his truck through a family-filled crowd enjoying fireworks.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack and five suspects with links to Lahouaiej-Bouhlel have appeared in court. Photographs taken by Lahouaiej Bouhlel on July 11 and 13 also show Mohamed Oualid G.in the truck that was used to mow down the crowd on July 14, Molins said.
Records of Bouhlel’s phone use indicated a large number of exchanges, calls and text messages over the past year with several of the accomplices under investigation, he said.
Meanwhile, President Francois Hollande announced on Friday that France would send artillery to Iraq next month for the fight against IS.
One photo in his phone, taken on May 25 previous year, was an article on Captagon, a drug said to be used by some jihadis before attacks.
Hollande said that any police “shortfalls” would be carefully looked into, but he defended French authorities against the media attacks, saying that “there is no room for polemics, there is only room for transparency”.
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On Thursday, parliament finalised adoption of a bill extending the emergency laws for a fourth time, after it was toughened up by the right-dominated Senate. It gives the police extra powers to carry out searches and to place people under house arrest.
