French prosecutor: Killer had help of 5, planned for months

PARIS — Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who killed 84 people in a terrorist attack in Nice, France, last week, planned his assault over several months and got help from at least five people, the Paris prosecutor said Thursday.

However, there is as yet no evidence that he or the suspected accomplices had any direct contact with the terrorist network, although the Islamic State called the attacker one of its “soldiers,” said the prosecutor, Francois Molins, who handles terrorism investigations in France.

Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian who lived in Nice, drove a cargo truck through crowds that had gathered on the city’s waterfront promenade to watch the Bastille Day fireworks on July 14. He also fired an automatic pistol at police before they shot and killed him.

Authorities initially said they believed that Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who had not been particularly religious, had become rapidly radicalized over a few weeks before the attack. But on Thursday, Molins suggested that the attack had been planned for months.

The five suspects, who were arrested in the days after the attack, were being charged Thursday with murder, attempted murder, terrorist conspiracy, and the possession and transportation of weapons, Molins said.

Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s estranged wife was also arrested, but was released without charges, as was a man who had been wrongly identified as a suspect, according to Audrey Delaunay, the man’s lawyer.

On Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s phone, investigators found pictures of fireworks and of the Nice promenade from last year, as well as an image of an article about Captagon, an amphetamine that has been associated in some news reports with Islamic State fighters.

Molins said investigators had uncovered pictures, text messages and phone calls that showed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had been in close contact over the past year with three men who are now suspects, all natives of Tunisia.

One of them, identified as Mohamed Oualid G., and Lahouaiej Bouhlel called each other 1,278 times over the last year. Mohamed Oualid G. sent Lahouaiej Bouhlel a text message praising the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, Molins said, and investigators found pictures on Mohamed Oualid G.’s phone of the aftermath of the attack in Nice.

Investigators also found pictures on Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s phone from July 11 and July 13 of Mohamed Oualid G. in the truck used for the attack, he said.

Fingerprints of another, Chokri C., were found on the truck’s passenger door, and he was recorded by a surveillance camera in the truck beside Lahouaiej Bouhlel, on the promenade in Nice, less than three hours before the attack, Molins said.

A text message sent by Lahouaiej Bouhlel to the third man, Ramzi A., just minutes before the attack thanked him for an automatic pistol, which he then used to shoot at police, Molins said.

An Albanian couple also face criminal proceedings.