A week after Bouhlel rammed a truck into a crowd which had been enjoying a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people, Molins said photos on his phone showed he had likely already staked out the event in 2015.
It also emerged that one of the five suspects in jug, a Tunisian named Mohammed Oualid G., had filmed the scene of the crime the day after the carnage, as it crawled with paramedics and journalists.
The five suspects will be presented to anti-terrorism judges later Thursday and Molins said prosecutors had requested they be charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, among other crimes. They are 22-year-old Franco-Tunisian Ramzi A., 37-year-old Tunisian Chokri C., 40-year-old Tunisian Mohammed Oualid G., 38-year-old Albanian Artan H., and his wife Enkeledja Z. who holds both French and Albanian nationality.
None of the suspects was known to intelligence services, and only Ramzi A., who was born in Nice, had a criminal record for robbery and drug offenses. This suspect led police to discover a Kalashnikov and a bag of ammunition on Thursday.
More than 400 Sherlocks have been poring over evidence since the grisly attack, the third in La Belle France in 18 months, and it was analyses of Bouhlel's telephone that led them to the five suspects.
While the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group claimed the attack, describing him as a "soldier", Sherlocks have not found direct proof of his allegiance to the jihadists.
Initial details of the investigation reveal his fascination with jihad has been around for a while. On May 26 last year, he took a photo of an article about the drug Captagon, an amphetamine used by jihadists in Syria. In July 2015 he took photos of the crowd at the Bastille Day fireworks display, as well as another crowd watching a concert on the Promenade Des Anglais three days later. 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."
Molins said the two Mohammeds contacted each other 1,278 times between July 2015 and July 2016.
- 'I am not Charlie' -
Investigators also found a text message in Bouhlel's phone from Mohammed Oualid on January 10 2015 -- roughly a year after attacks on the Charlie Hebdo
...
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...weekly which spawned the hashtag "I am Charlie" in support of those killed.
The message read: "I am not Charlie ... I am happy they have brought soldiers of Allah to finish the job."
Analyses of his computer and cellphone showed a wide-range of images and internet searches showing a fascination with violence and jihadist movements such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
- State of emergency extended -
On Thursday, parliament finalized adoption of a bill extending the emergency laws for a fourth time, after it was toughened up by the right-dominated Senate. The final version bans gatherings where sufficient security cannot be provided and makes it easier to shut places of worship where preachers incite hate or violence.
Since November the authorities have had emergency powers to carry out searches by day or night and place people under house arrest.