This report was last updated at 11 p.m. CET.
French police on Friday seized computer equipment, SIM cards and documents during a search of the home in Nice of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the Tunisian national who on Thursday night deliberately drove a 19-tonne truck into packed crowds on the seafront pavement of the Promenade des Anglais during Bastille Day celebrations.
Although the events are officially being investigated as a terrorist crime, no group has yet claimed responsibility and investigators are continuing to search for the motive of the attack. Bouhlel appears to have carried out the attack on his own on Thursday night, although whether others were involved in its preparation is still unknown.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, interviewed on Friday evening by French TV channel France 2, described Bouhlel as “a terrorist, no doubt linked with radical Islamism in one way or another”.
"[Public prosecutor] François Molins said very clearly, yes, it’s a terrorist act and we will see what are the complicities and the links with terrorist organizations, but it is of course a terrorist act,” said Valls.
However, at about the same time, interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve was interviewed live by another French TV Channel, TF1. Asked whether he was in a position to say clearly that Bouhel was linked to radical Islamists, Cazeneuve answered “No”.
“We have an individual who is not at all known to the intelligence services for activities linked to radical Islamism,” added Cazeneuve.
The official toll of the massacre, which began at about 10.45 p.m. on Thursday, is now 84 dead, among whom were at least 10 minors and several foreign nationals. At least 202 people were injured, among whom 52 are in a critical condition with 25 on life support machines. Not all of the dead have been identified and there were still numerous appeals on social media for help in tracing people who have not been accounted for.
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President François Hollande, who has also described the attack as a terrorist crime, has declared three days of national mourning, beginning on July 16th, and he extended for a further three months the state of emergency powers first introduced after the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris. Just hours before the tragedy in Nice, during the traditional Bastille Day television interview of the president, Hollande had announced the state of emergency would be annulled on July 26th.
In an interview with Tunisian radio station Jawhara FM on Friday, Bouhlel’s brother, Jaber, described the killer as a non-practicing Muslim. Jaber Bouhlel said his brother Mohamed had been due to arrive in Tunis in two days’ time to celebrate the circumcision of his son.
Meanwhile, a Tunisian man who arrived in France with Mohamed Bouhlel, and who knew the killer while the two settled in Nice, told French radio station France Info that he had doubts about Bouhel's mental health over recent months. The witness said had financial difficulties, notably in paying alimony to his estranged wife with whom he had three children, and suggested he may have fallen into a depressed state of mind.
New details of the circumstances of the attack and the profile of the perpetrator emerged late Friday afternoon at a press briefing given by Paris public prosecutor François Molins, in charge of three preliminary investigations opened specifically into terrorist-related crimes.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, was shot dead by police after his rented truck had travelled about two kilometres along the seafront boulevard, speeding up to an estimated 50 kilometres per hour, mounting the pavement and zigzagging as it ploughed into hundreds of pedestrians. An estimated 30,000 people, including families and tourists, were attending the July 14th celebrations organised by the municipal authorities.
Prosecutor Molins said that shortly before the truck came to a halt on the Promenade des Anglais, Bouhlel had shot,while driving, at three policemen who returned fire. Further shots were fired after police surrounded the vehicle, in which Bouhlel’s dead body was found slumped in the passenger seating. Molins said a 7.65 calibre handgun, ammunition and spent cartridges were discovered close to him, as well as a fake pistol, two “replica” semi-automatic Klashnikov and M16 rifles, and a fake grenade.
“The terrorist fired several times at three police officers at the level of the hotel Negresco,” said Molins. “The police returned fire and chased the truck which nevertheless succeeded in continuing for another 300 metres. The police officers managed to neutralise him with shots at the site of the hotel de la Méditerranée. The terrorist was found dead in the passenger seat.”
Bouhlel was rapidly identified after an identity card, a credit card and a mobile phone were also found in the truck.
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Molins said Bouhlel, a father of three who worked as a delivery driver, had a criminal record for violence and theft, but that he was not known to have terrorist connections or links to radical Islam groups. He had rented the truck on July 11th and had been due to return the vehicle on July 13th.
Luc Poignant, a police officer representing the Unité SGP FO union, quoted by French daily Le Parisien, said “the vehicle wasn’t chosen by accident”, adding: “It’s a heavy vehicle, a truck. To stop it is much more complicated.”
Bouhlel's estranged wife appeared of her own accord at a police station and was taken into custody for questioning throughout Friday. Her separate home was also searched by police.
Molins, who also led the preliminary investigation into last year’s terrorist attacks in Paris, said CCTV footage had shown Bouhlel recovering the truck on Thursday night in Nice where it had been parked since the previous day. He had cycled to the vehicle, and his bicycle was found inside the truck after his death.
The prosecutor said the Tunisian had a criminal record for theft and violent crimes carried out between 2010 and 2016, and had been given a six-month suspended jail sentence in March this year for his part in a violent dispute in January with the driver of a vehicle following a traffic collision.
In an interview with French radio station France Info, a neighbour of Bouhlel described him as “a fairly ordinary man”, adding that he had “arrived from Tunisia a few years ago, from the region of Sousse”. Another neighbour told the station that Bouhlel was “not very religious” and that he “enjoyed the salsa and girls”.
Other neighbours interviewed by French weekly L’Obs and cited in its website reports said Bouhlel was “solitary” and “silent”. One, named Sébastien, said the Tunisian was often in shorts and did not have the appearance of a religious-minded individual.
The massacre on Thursday night has given rise to political attacks on the socialist government from the right-wing opposition, and notably the competence of the intelligence and security agencies which have already come in for strong criticism following the January and November attacks in Paris last year. Earlier this week, just days before the events in Nice, interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve had dismissed the idea of an overhaul of the French intelligence services.
Alain Juppé, former prime minister and currently the leading contender to stand as the presidential candidate for the conservative Républicains party in elections due next June, declared Friday: “If all the means had been employed, the drama of Nice would not have happened.” However, Juppé was reminded by comments in some media that he had been prime minister when, in 1995, France suffered a series of terrorist attacks by Algerian Islamic militants.
Fellow conservative Christian Estrosi, who was mayor of Nice until elected president of the local regional council last year, said many questions about security on the night of the attack needed answering. “How is it possible, when the promenade des Anglais was banned to vehicles, that this vehicle could have had access to it?” he asked in an interview with BFM TV. “How many officers from the national police force were posted? What were the means that had been put in place when our country is still under a state of emergency to avoid this? These are questions that I have asked the interior minister, without receiving a reply, because, obviously, I always get the reply: ‘investigation’.”
The length of the Promenade des Anglais where the carnage unfolded was closed to the public on Friday, as forensic police continued to work amid objects still scattered on the boulevard. The parallel stretch of the pebbled beach where dozens of people had jumped to, and fell down upon, from the pavement to escape the truck was also closed, while military patrol boats circled.
As the day wore on, horrific eye witness accounts emerged, as well as footage of a motorcyclist who had bravely tried to stop the truck, but in vain. One unconfirmed report said that he fell under the truck's wheels after reaching the side of the truck and attempting to enter the cabin.
In an interview with L’Obs, a 24-year-old student from Paris holidaying in Nice with friends identified by her first name, Héléna, described what she saw on Thursday night, when she at first thought the truck’s brakes had failed. “I stayed there, incapable of moving, paralysed, watching people hurl and shove each other, the mangled prams, the bodies falling,” she said. “As if I was in a film.”
Her friend Cyprien pulled her away. “At that moment, the truck was almost upon us,” he told L’Obs. “I even had the time to see the face of the driver, bearded, who seemed to be enjoying himself.” The pair found refuge in a hotel where they said they saw a badly injured young child die in the arms of his mother.
Mediapart’s Laurent Geslin met with the manager of a petrol station who had been present at the festivities on Thursday night with his three-year-old daughter. “I filmed corpses, so that my wife would believe me, so that she would understand what our daughter saw,” said Moussef (last name withheld), who is of Algerian origin. “It is my child of three years who saved us. After the fireworks, we came back up the beach along the Promenade des Anglais. She got away from me and ran towards a balloon seller. I followed her. If I hadn’t moved, we’d be dead the two of us. I saw a truck that was bouncing. In fact, it was the bodies of the people who were under the wheels. I think someone threw a scooter to try to stop him and police officers fired in at least two directions.”
“Why?” asked Moussef. “Why? I was in Algeria in the 1990s, during the civil war. I never thought I’d relive that.”