The French police have named Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel as the suspect in the attack in Nice, France, on Thursday night, Le Monde reports. The attacker reportedly shot at a crowd of Bastille Day revelers from a truck and accelerated the vehicle into them, leaving at least 84 people dead and hundreds more injured. Al Jazeera News on Friday afternoon released a purported photo of the alleged attacker. Police officers shot the attacker dead. Authorities found identity papers in the truck.
The Nice-Matin newspaper reported that people close to Bouhlel were being questioned by the police. Bouhlel's neighbors described him as a solitary and quiet person in interviews with AFP. Most people in his apartment building said they never talked to him. Bouhlel was born in 1985 and was of Tunisian origin, from the town of Msaken, The Telegraph reports, citing Tunisian security sources. The newspaper reported that Bouhlel was a father of three who had become depressed since a divorce, citing neighbors who said he also had financial problems.
His ex-wife has been taken into custody according to Nice-Matin.
Neighbors described him as "depressed and unstable, even aggressive," according to The Telegraph, but they assumed it was because of his personal problems, as they said he was "more into women than religion."
"He was rude and bit weird," a woman who lived in the building told the paper, adding that he would talk about his wife at the local cafe. "He was very smart with the same haircut as George Clooney."
Another neighbor had been suspicious of Bouhlel, Nice-Matin reported, describing him as a "handsome man who looked too much at my two daughters."
Bouhlel lived in Nice and was known by the police for criminal offences including assault with a weapon, domestic violence, threats, and robbery, according to The Telegraph. But Nice-Matin reported that he was not under the surveillance of French authorities and was not listed as a person who could pose a threat.
His home was searched by the police on Friday morning. The attacker used a 7.65 mm pistol to shoot at the police and the crowd, and the refrigerated truck he drove into the crowd was filled with explosives. Bouhlel had rented the truck two days before the attack, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but French President Francois Hollande described it as an act of terror.
One person 'with extraordinary courage' stopped the truck in the Nice attack
By Michelle Mark,
A truck bulldozed through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, a major French holiday, on Thursday night when one person jumped onto the hood of the truck, giving the police enough time to stop the driver.
"It was at that moment that the police were able to stop the terrorist," Eric Ciotti, an official with the Alpes-Maritimes Department that covers the Nice area, told Europe 1 radio Friday, The New York Times reported.
Ciotti said the truck's driver shot at the person who had jumped into its path before turning his pistol on police officers but missed all of his targets. Police then shot and killed the driver.
"I will never forget the look of the policewoman who intercepted the killer," Ciotti said.
The driver has since been identified by authorities as 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel of Nice.
At least 18 people remain in serious condition, and 54 children have been hospitalized since the attack, the French newspaper Nice-Matin reported.
