International News
Two arrested in connection with Nice attack
July 21, 2016 posted by Steve Brownstein
French authorities arrested an Albanian couple Sunday in connection with the Nice terror attacks that killed 84 people last week, the Paris prosecutor's office spokeswoman told CNN.
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, drove a 20-ton truck through hundreds gathered to watch the Bastille Day fireworks Thursday night on the Mediterranean city's waterfront.
Agnes Thibault Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the anti-terrorism prosecutor, did not provide details on the couple's connection to the terror attack.
French authorities said six people are in custody in connection with the attacks. Bouhlel's estranged wife was arrested at her apartment Friday and released Sunday morning without charge, her attorney, Jean-Yves Garino, told CNN. Garino said the woman, the mother of Bouhlel's three children, had not been in contact with the attacker since they were in the middle of divorce proceedings.
Bouhlel was shot to death by police after he barreled down the crowded Promenade des Anglais for almost a mile, crushing and hitting people who had gathered to watch fireworks. More than 200 people were injured.
Authorities identified him by fingerprints after his identification card was found in the truck.
Bouhlel, a resident of Nice, was born in Tunisia but had a permit to live and work in France.
He was known to police because of allegations of threats, violence and thefts over the past six years, and he was given a suspended six-month prison sentence this year after being convicted of violence with a weapon, authorities said.
Despite his criminal record, he was not on the radar for any kind of terror threat. The man was "entirely unknown by the intelligence services, whether nationally or locally," French prosecutor François Molins said.
"He had never been the subject of any kind of file or indication of radicalization."