Police question truck killer’s 73-year-old ‘gay lover’

POLICE in Nice have questioned a 73year-old man said to be the Bastille Day killer’s “main lover” as investigators described the terrorist as a “sex maniac” and “ultra-violent sadist”, according to French reports.

The revelation came amid reports that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had displayed a “clear, recent interest in the radical jihadist movement”, growing a beard only in the last eight days after a previous life drinking alcohol and eating pork.

François Molins, the French prosecutor, said that the Tunisian, who killed 84 people when he ploughed into crowds on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais after a late-night fireworks display last Thursday, had searched on the internet for information on terror attacks in Orlando and the Paris suburb of Magnanville, where two police officers were murdered last month.

Recent mobile and computer searches included images “linked to radical Islam” – from decapitations to chants.

He had also done numerous searches on road deaths with the proviso “sensitive viewers abstain” and one on a recent article in the Nice-Matin newspa- per about a motorist who “deliberately mowed into a restaurant terrace”.

Mr Molins confirmed that the murderous act was clearly premeditated as Bouhlel had visited the Promenade des Anglais in his truck in the two days leading up to the attack, taking photos.

There were unconfirmed claims by his uncle that he had been indoctrinated about two weeks ago by an Algerian member of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in Nice, who found him an “easy prey”.

Dubbed a “soldier of Islam” by Isil, Bouhlel’s mobile phone suggests he often used dating sites to pick up male and female lovers. Police have already questioned several of these since the deadly attack, in particular, according to Le Parisien, a 73-year old man, which a source close to the investigation described as “his main lover”.