The Bastille Day massacre in Nice was a “premeditated, thought-out and planned” attack, French prosecutors have said, reports The Guardian.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had grown a beard in the eight days before he carried out the attack and told friends “the significance of the beard is religious”, prosecutor François Molins told a press conference.
Bouhlel had not previously shown any sign of being religious, and “ate pork, drank alcohol, took drugs and had a promiscuous sex life,” Molins said, outlining evidence gathered by police.
One witness told detectives that during a discussion about portrayals of Islamic State decapitations online, Bouhlel had replied: “I am used to that,” Molins said.
Documents and images on Bouhlel’s phone showed he had visited the Promenade des Anglais on July 12th, two days before the attack, and taken several photographs including selfies.
Molins said investigators had found no proof of any “allegiance or any direct link” to Islamic State or other terrorist organisations, but Lahouaiej-Boulel’s computer contained “very violent” images from radical Islamic sites and links to jihadi websites, as well as articles about the Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, the recent nightclub attack in Orlando and shootings in Dallas, and the killing of two police officers in Magnanville, a Paris suburb, as well as research into Osama bin Laden and the former Islamic State head Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
The attacker’s computer records showed a “sure and recent interest for radical jihadist movements”, Molins said, adding that Bouhlel had also consulted articles on fatal accidents including a report from Nice Matin newspaper headlined: “Man drives his car into a restaurant terrace.”