PARIS, July 22. /TASS/. Five suspects of plotting the terrorist attack in Nice on July 14, previously arrested in France, have been charged, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Friday with reference to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.
On Thursday, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins confirmed the arrest of five people who are suspected accomplices of the terrorist in Nice, France truck attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel who rammed a truck into a crowd which had been enjoying a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people.
The suspects are 22-year-old Franco-Tunisian Ramzi A., 37-year-old Tunisian Chokri C., 40-year-old Tunisian Mohamed Oualid G., 38-year-old Albanian Artan H., and his wife Enkeledja Z. who holds both French and Albanian nationality. None of the suspects were known to intelligence services, and only Ramzi A., who was born in Nice, had a criminal record for robbery and drug offences, according to AFP.
The arrested Albanians - Artan H. and Enkeledja Z. - are suspected of supplying weapons to the terrorist in Nice.
According to AFP, Ramzi, Chokri and Oualid were charged with being accomplices to murder by a terror group. Ramzi and the Albanian couple faced a second charge, of breaking the law on firearms in relation to a terrorist crime. The three latter suspects are accused of providing Bouhlel with the gun he fired at police officers before he was shot dead. More than 400 investigators have been poring over evidence since the grisly attack, the third in France in 18 months, and it was analyses of Bouhlel's telephone records that led them to the five suspects.
On the evening of July 14, thousands of visitors had been returning from a festive firework display for Bastille Day on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, when a truck rammed into the crowd at full speed. Eighty-four people were killed and about 200 were injured. The French authorities declared a three-day national mourning for the terrorist attack victims and took measures to beef up security in the country.