Fresh information about last week’s deadly truck attack in the French city of Nice shows the attack had been planned for months and the attacker had accomplices.
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The man who killed 84 innocent people by driving a truck through a packed crowd at a fireworks display in Nice, France, may have plotted the attack for at least a year and is believed to have had the help of at least five other people, a French official said today.
Investigators have said they have no proof yet that the driver, who was shot dead by police, had pledged allegiance to the group.
A source in the Paris prosecutor’s office, which is leading the investigation into the attack, told AFP the police aimed to prevent dissemination of the “profoundly shocking” images.
Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s laptop contained detailed photos of last year’s Bastille Day fireworks, saved articles about other terrorist attacks, and mentions of the “magical” drug Captagon, a stimulant popular with militants fighting for Islamic State.
In a press conference, the revelation by Paris prosecutor Francois Molins made clear that the attack on Bastille Day was the result of a terrorist organization and that the five suspects now in custody are directly linked to the attack.
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.
One of the five suspected accomplices, Choukri C, sent Bouhlel a text message on April 4 this year, saying: “Fill up the truck with 2,000 tons of iron and screw [them], cut the brakes and my friend I’ll watch”.
None were known previously to intelligence services.
Police shot Bouhlel to death after he barreled down the crowded Promenade des Anglais for nearly a mile, crushing and hitting people who had gathered to watch fireworks. “I am happy they have brought soldiers of Allah to finish the job”.
Minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s clarification comes as a newspaper accused French authorities of lacking transparency in their handling of the massacre. Using witness statements and photos, “Liberation” showed that only one local police vehicle 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.
The newspaper Libération reported Thursday that only one municipal police auto was positioned at the spot where Lahouaiej Bouhlel barreled through and on to the promenade, and it said that although state and city officials had agreed on – and stuck to – a security plan for Bastille Day, the government misrepresented those measures after the attack.
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Since, the attack the National Assembly has extended the nation’s state of emergency for six more months, a measure that had been implemented following the November 13 Paris attacks that claimed the lives of 130 people-another attack claimed by the Islamic State.
