Nice truck killer had accomplices: Paris prosecutor

The city received a letter this week from the SDAT anti-terrorism agency saying images of the July 14 attack should be destroyed, an official at Nice City Hall said.

Prosecutor Francois Molins, in charge of terrorism investigations in France, said Thursday five suspected accomplices were arrested, adding charges would include murder, attempted murder, terrorist conspiracy, and the possession and transportation of weapons.

None were known to intelligence services, and only Ramzi A., who was born in Nice, had a criminal record, for robbery and drug offenses.

Ramzi A, a Franco-Tunisian, has been charged with arms offences in relation to a terrorist enterprise. A married couple from Albania, who allegedly gave Bouhlel the pistol he used in the police shootout, were also arrested.

The disclosures came as the row deepened over alleged security failings in Nice ahead of last week’s attack in which Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a truck through barriers and into crowds on the promenade, killing 84 and injuring more than 300.

The suspects are accused of assisting Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel to prepare the terror attack that claimed lives of 84 people in Nice.

The cell phone included a photo last year’s Bastille Day fireworks on the des Anglais Promenade site and information on an amphetamine pill that Jihadi fighters use. These images and several others helped investigators determine the attack was planned.

The newspaper Libération reported Thursday that only one municipal police vehicle was positioned at the spot where Lahouaiej Bouhlel barreled through and on to the promenade, and it said that although state and city officials had agreed on – and stuck to – a security plan for Bastille Day, the government misrepresented those measures after the attack.

Bouhlel had photographed two of the suspects, Mohamed Walid G and Choukri C, in the cabin of the truck used for the attack.

On April 4 this year, Chokri C. sent Bouhlel a Facebook message reading: “Load the truck with 2,000 tonnes of iron. release the brakes my friend and I will watch”.

While the investigation is still piecing together the disparate pieces of the picture, no clear link has yet been established between Lahouaiej Bouhlel and Daesh, which claimed responsibility for the attack two days after it occurred.

An internal police investigation into the security measures has been launched, and President Francois Hollande is holding a special security meeting Friday.

Paris Prosecutor François Molins laid out a timeline with evidence the attacker and his suspected accomplices had embraced Islamist extremism as early as the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015. “They brought the soldiers of Allah to finish the work”.