Paris // Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel's attack on crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice last week was planned for months, a French prosecutor said on Thursday.
Four men and a woman arrested since then were "involved in the preparation" of the attack in the French Riviera resort, Francois Molins said, with records showing that at least one of them .
More than 400 investigators have been poring over evidence since the July 14 attack in which Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a resident of Nice who was born in Tunisia, rammed a truck into crowds on the Nice promenade, leaving 84 dead and more than 300 injured.
"Investigations have not only confirmed the premeditated nature of the attack, but allowed us to establish that [he] had support and accomplices in the preparation and execution of his criminal act," Mr Molins said.
One of the suspects, a Tunisian identified as Mohamed Oualid G, filmed the scene of the crime the day after the carnage, as it crawled with paramedics and journalists, he said.
Like Lahouaiej Bouhlel, none of the suspects was known to intelligence services. Only one of them, Ramzi A, a 22-year-old Franco-Tunisian who was born in Nice, had a criminal record for robbery and drug offences.
Analysis of Lahouaiej Bouhlel's telephone revealed pictures taken at a Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice in 2015, as well as a concert on the Promenade des Anglais on July 17, 2015, at which he had zoomed in on the crowd.
On May 26 last year, he took a photo of an article about the drug Captagon which Mr Molins said was "used by some jihadists responsible for attacks".
"It appears ... that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel planned and developed his criminal project for several months before taking action," he said.
On April 4, another Tunisian, Chokri C, 37, sent Lahouaiej Bouhlel a Facebook message reading: "Load the truck with 2,000 tonnes of iron ... release the brakes my friend and I will watch".
Mr Molins said the two Mohameds contacted each other 1,278 times since July 2015.
Investigators also found a text message in Lahouaiej Bouhlel's phone from Mohamed Oualid on January 10 - roughly a year after attacks on the Charlie Hebdo 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."
Authorities had initially pointed to a rapid radicalisation by Lahouaiej Bouhlel, after several members of his family and friends said he showed no sign of being religious.
Investigators also found photos of Mohamed Oualid in the truck used to carry out the attack on July 11 and 13, while video surveillance placed Chokri with Lahouaiej Bouhlel in the truck just hours before the attack.
The five suspects were to be presented to anti-terrorism judges later on Thursday and prosecutors have requested they be charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, among other crimes, Mr Molins said.
* Agence France-Presse
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