France grieves following truck attack in Nice
No terror links, not considered a religious man
As new details emerged Friday about the Tunisian man who drove a truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84 people and wounding 202 others, French leaders extended a state of emergency imposed after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks and vowed to deploy thousands of police reservists on the streets.
French officials called it an undeniable act of terror, but it wasn’t clear if the 31-year-old delivery driver blamed for the carnage had extremist ties.
Neighbours described Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel as a “weird loner” who “became depressed” when his wife left him.
His wife is in police custody as officers question her about his alleged Islamist links.
Bouhlel was reportedly not on a terrorist watch list or suspected of being security threat.
Neighbours at his apartment described Bouhlel as a depressed — sometimes aggressive — man who was not particularly interested in religion.
• A Tunisian-born émigré with a record of petty crime was behind the wheel of a truck that barrelled into Bastille Day revellers and killed at least 84 people, a French prosecutor said Friday, as investigators explored possible links to Islamist militant networks.
Neighbours described the 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel as a “weird loner” who “became depressed” when his wife left him.
His wife is in police custody as officers question her about his alleged Islamist links. Bouhlel was reportedly not on a terrorist watch list or suspected of being security threat.
As more than 200 remained in hospital — including 50 fighting for their lives in intensive care and 25 people on life support — investigators have been searching the home of Bouhlel, where he apparently lived alone, in the Abattoirs area of Nice and carried out a controlled explosion on a white box van nearby.
Investigating sources said Bouhlel’s last appearance in a criminal court was as recently as March, when he was found guilty of violent contact. Despite this, he had no known links with terrorism and was not under surveillance.
Police also raided the 12th-floor apartment listed on an identity card left in the truck, but the man had not lived there in two years. The apartment was occupied by the man’s estranged wife, who was led away by authorities, three of the neighbours said. The apartment showed visible signs of having been forced in, including a hole where the lock had been.
Four young men inside the apartment told The Associated Press they were related to the wife, who they said was divorcing her husband.
Hajer Khalfallah, the wife’s neighbour, said: “The wife and her family are lovely. They are nice people. But the husband — he was weird and bizarre.
“It was what caused the problem. And he was really horrible to her. He would beat and hit the wife. She was much better when she left him.”
Walid Hamou, her cousin, said Bouhlel “was not religious. He did not go to the mosque, he did not pray, he did not observe Ramadan. He drank alcohol, ate pork and took drugs. This is all forbidden under Islam.
“He was not a Muslim, he was a s---. He beat his wife. He was a nasty piece of work.”
Neighbours at the firstfloor Abattoir apartment described Bouhlel as a depressed — sometimes aggressive — man who was not particularly interested in religion, and kept to himself.
They said that he had been unhappy since the couple separated two years ago.
Those who lived near him said he had been “depressed and unstable, even aggressive” of late. They put this down to his “marital and financial problems”.
One told BFM TV he was “more into women than religion.”
“He (didn’t) pray and like(d) girls and Salsa,” according to BFM’s crime correspondent.
One 40-year-old neighbour, who would only give her first name Jasmine, said: “He was rude and a bit weird.
“He kept himself to himself but would always rant about his wife. He had marital problems and would tell people in the local café. He scared my children though.”
She added: “He was very smart with the same haircut as George Clooney.”
Another neighbour, Sébastien, said he “didn’t have the appearance of a religious person and was often in shorts, sometimes wearing ‘security’ shoes.’ ”
Anan, who also lived near him, said she found him shifty but described him as “a good-looking man who eyed-up my two girls too much”.
A woman living in the same block said: “I hardly knew him, but from what I could see he seemed very weird. He lived alone. He said very little to anyone and wasn’t very polite. He wouldn’t hold the door open for you.”
France’s minister of justice told reporters in Paris that Bouhlel “was at the centre of several procedures but was sentenced for only one incident” this year.
Jean-Jacques Urvoas said Bouhlel was placed on probation after throwing a wooden pallet at another driver during a confrontation.
The minister said Bouhlel was handed a suspended sentence since he had never been convicted, though he had been investigated for assault with a weapon, domestic violence, threats and robbery but had no previous convictions for terrorism.
The fact that the killer was known to the authorities will be of grave concern to those trying to prevent terrorist attacks in France.