He never prayed or attended a mosque, and hit his wife - with whom he had three children aged five, three and 18 months - and was in the process of getting a divorce.
Bouhlel, who had been known to the French police since January, had been on the radar for six months for petty criminality.
It
is understood he lost his job as a delivery driver when he fell asleep
at the wheel and crashed into four cars and had also been involved in a
bar brawl.
Walid
Hamou, a cousin of Bouhlel's wife Hajer Khalfallah , told MailOnline:
'Bouhlel was not religious.
He did not go to the mosque, he did not
pray, he did not observe Ramadan.'He drank alcohol, ate pork and took
drugs. This is all forbidden under Islam.
'He was not a Muslim, he was a s***.
'He beat his wife, my cousin, he was a nasty piece of work.'
Yesterday,
he was stopped by police just hours before he crushed scores of people
underneath the wheels of his 25 tonne truck and fired shots
indiscriminately at police and innocent bystanders.
He told officers that he was delivering ice-cream to the area and was allowed to park on the waterfront for several hours.
Horrifying
footage of the moment the truck turned into a deadly juggernaut were
uploaded online within minutes, showing a trail of dead bodies left in
its path.
Bouhlel's wife was taken into protective custody by police this morning.
Detectives
had raided the 12th floor apartment she had shared with her estranged
husband in the early hours of the morning and another rented property
nearby.
More
disturbing facts emerged about Bouhlel's frame of mind in the hours
leading to his murderous rampage on the Promenade des Anglais.
Wissam, a
Tunisian neighbour from the same village as the driver claimed: ‘On the
Thursday night he was drinking with a colleague and they argued.
His pal said you’re worth nothing and he replied: ‘One day, you’ll hear about me.’Speaking to L’Express he said: 'Look this is someone who drinks, smokes cannabis.'A neighbour called Hannan, who lived on the floor below, said: “He always looked at me oddly. He stared at us and we avoided him.’
Another neighbour described him as shifty and unwillingly to make contact.
Also, it now seems that the guns found in the van were fake and the grenade inoperable.
‘Why?’ said Wissam. ‘What was the point of that?'
It
comes after Bouhlel was named by police as the terrorist who drove a
lorry for more than a mile through crowds of people celebrating Bastille
Day in the southern French city.
No comments:
Post a Comment