Neighbours describe truck attack suspect as ‘loner’ – Bouhlel convicted for road rage

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NICE, France, July 15, (Agencies): Neighbours of the man suspected to have killed scores of people in a truck attack on the Nice seafront described him Friday as a loner with no visible religious affiliation, as forensic experts searched his flat. AFP reporters interviewed about a dozen neighbours of the man, named by police as 31-year-old Franco-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, whose identity papers were found in the truck.

They portrayed him as a solitary figure who rarely spoke and did not even return greetings when their paths crossed in the fourstorey block, located in a workingclass neighbourhood of Nice. Sebastien, a neighbour who spoke on condition that his full name was not used, said Lahouaiej- Bouhlel did not seem overtly religious, often dressed in shorts and sometimes wore work boots. He had a van parked nearby and owned a bike, which he brought up into his first-floor apartment.

Of those who were interviewed, only one, a neighbour on the ground floor, said she had any concerns about him — he was “a good-looking man who kept giving my two daughters the eye.” Police investigators and forensic experts entered his apartment around 9.30 am (0730 GMT) with an armed police intervention unit in support, and brought out bags of material later.

At least 84 people were killed when the white 19-tonne truck slammed into the crowd on the Promenade des Anglais, Nice’s glitzy beachfront, as they gathered to watch a firework display on France’s national day. A source close to the investigation said an “inactive” grenade was found inside the vehicle, as well as “several fake rifles.” President Francois Hollande has declared the attack was of “an undeniable terrorist nature.” “Investigations are currently underway to establish if the individual acted alone or if he had accomplices who might have fled,” interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said. Meanwhile, Described by his neighbours as a handsome but frightening man, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was convicted only once before: for road rage.

While he had several run-ins with the law previously, Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Nice resident born in Tunisia, was not on a watch list of French intelligence services as a suspected militant. He was convicted for the first time in March this year, French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said. “There was an altercation between him and another driver and he hurled a wooden pallet at the man,” Urvoas told reporters. As it was his first conviction, Bouhlel was given a suspended sentence and had to contact police once a week, which he did, Urvoas added. Tunisian security sources told Reuters Bouhlel had last visited his hometown of Msaken, about 120 km (75 miles) south of Tunis, four years ago. He was married with three children, but had marital problems, the Tunisian sources said.

He was not known by the Tunisian authorities to hold radical or Islamist views, and had held a French residence permit for the past 10 years without obtaining French nationality, Tunisian sources said. His home town Msaken is about 10 km (six miles) outside the coastal city of Sousse, where a gunman killed 38 people, mostly British holidaymakers, on a beach a year ago. Many residents of the town have migrated to Nice, where the Tunisian community numbers about 130,000 people, according to Tunisian state news agency TAP. The Tunisian government issued a statement condemning the attack “in the strongest possible terms”.

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