He also suggested their cars were blocking the walkway entrance when Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 19-metric ton (20-ton) truck onto the promenade killing 84 people before police shot him dead.
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Prosecutor Francois Molins said his office, which oversees terrorism investigations, said five suspects now in custody are facing preliminary terrorism charges for their alleged roles in helping driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, in a judicial inquiry opened 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.
Mr Molins told a news conference in Paris that one of the suspects filmed the scene of the crime the day after the carnage.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said information from driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s phone showed searches and photographs indicating he had been studying for a possible attack since 2015.
In Nice, investigators found a Kalashnikov rifle and a bag of ammunition in the basement of a 22-year-old man who is among five being held over links to Bouhlel.
Garino said the woman, who is the mother of Bouhlel’s three children, had not been in contact with the attacker since they were in the middle of divorce proceedings.
Bouhlel received a text from one of the men a few days after the January 2015 Islamist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a Jewish deli saying: “I am not Charlie. I am happy they have brought soldiers of Allah to finish the job”.
France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has acknowledged there was no national police presence at the entrance to the promenade at the time.
French authorities had previously said six people were in custody in connection with the attacks.
Cazeneuve then launched an internal police investigation into the handling of the Nice attack. He said any police “shortcomings” will be carefully addressed but defended French authorities’ actions.
Using witness statements and photos in its Thursday edition, Liberation claimed only one local police vehicle was stationed at the entrance to the walkway.
“There’s no room for polemics, there’s only room for transparency”, he said.
The attack came just as France was preparing to lift the state of emergency in place since the November attacks in Paris, prompting an immediate reversal of course.
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Molins said Thursday there was no evidence so far that Bouhlel or his alleged accomplices had direct contact with ISIS.
