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French prosecutor says Nice attack was premeditated

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Officials and religious leaders attended a wreath-laying as a tribute to the victims of the Nice truck attack on July 21.VALERY HACHE

By Aurelien Breeden

New York Times

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

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

The attacker, Mohamed 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 Bastille Day fireworks on July 14. He also fired an automatic pistol at police before they shot and killed him.

Molins said that investigators had been able to confirm “not only the premeditated character of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s deadly act” but also that he had “benefited from support and complicity in the preparation and carrying out of his criminal act.”

The five suspects, who were arrested in the days after the attack, were to be charged Thursday. Molins said that the charges would include murder, attempted murder, terrorist conspiracy, and the possession and transportation of weapons.

Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s estranged wife was also arrested, but was released without charges on Sunday, 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. Also on the phone was an image of an article on a Tunisian man killed in January after he tried to attack a police station in Paris.

Questions continued to be raised about security measures in Nice on the night of the attack, which killed not only French citizens who had been celebrating their national holiday, but also people of 19 other nationalities, including citizens of Algeria, Brazil, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, and the United States.

France’s Socialist government has sparred repeatedly with opposing politicians on the right and far-right, especially local officials in Nice, over how many national and municipal officers were securing the promenade on the night of the attack and how they were spread out. The national police answer to the state, whereas municipal officers answer to city authorities.

The newspaper Libération reported Thursday that only one municipal police car 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.

The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, who accused the newspaper of using “conspiracy theory” methods, has ordered an internal police investigation, separate from the ongoing judicial one, which will look into the Bastille Day security measures in Nice.

Questions have also been raised about why authorities did not position heavy obstacles at the entrances to the promenade’s pedestrian area, to block vehicles from entering.

Authorities across France are rushing to strengthen security at the dozens of events held around the country over the summer.

In Paris, authorities have added vehicle barriers at Paris Plages, an annual event that started Wednesday where sections of the Seine’s embankments are turned into artificial beaches, but have canceled other events, like an open-air film festival and a pedestrian day on the Champs-Élysées.

On Thursday, Parliament also passed a bill extending for another six months the state of emergency that was declared after the November attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris.

The latest extension runs until the end of January. If carried out to its term, it will set a record in France for uninterrupted time spent under a state of emergency.