Arrest of two more people suspected of participating in the Nice attack

Two men, aged 25 and 63, were arrested, bringing to six the number of people detained by police in connection with the case of the knife attack on a church in Nice (southeastern France), as reported this Sunday a judicial source.

The source explained that the two men were arrested late Saturday afternoon at the home of a person detained a few hours earlier. The latter, a 29-year-old Tunisian, is suspected of communicating with the Tunisian attacker Ibrahim al-Issawi.

The first suspect was a 47-year-old man who was arrested Thursday after appearing alongside the attacker in CCTV footage on the eve of the attack.

The second suspect, 35, was arrested in Nice on Friday night and detained pending an investigation.

On Saturday, a French judicial source announced the arrest of a third person close to the second suspect, who in turn was arrested pending an investigation in the case of the Nice attack.

The third suspect, 33, was present during a search at the home of the second suspect, his relative, on Friday night.

Investigators were unable to take the testimony of Ibrahim al-Issawi, 21, who was seriously injured by police bullets after the attack.

On Thursday morning, Issawi entered a church in central Nice, where he murdered a 60-year-old woman and the 55-year-old church sailor. A 44-year-old Brazilian woman died after being stabbed several times in a nearby restaurant where she took refuge.

A source familiar with the investigations claimed that Al-Issawi may have arrived in Nice on Tuesday, while staying at least one night in one of the city’s buildings, and that surveillance cameras were monitoring him “in the vicinity of the church in the eve “of the attack.

Another source close to the file told AFP on Saturday morning: “It is still too early to know if he benefited from his complicity, what were his reasons for coming to France and when this idea arose in him.”

The source said that the two telephones of his personal effects “continued to analyze”, indicating that “the investigation by the Tunisian side” would be “decisive”.

Al-Issawi has judicial precedents in Tunisia ranging from public rights issues, violence and drugs, according to the Tunisian judiciary, which in turn launched investigations.

Al-Issawi had left his hometown of Sfax in mid-September, where he lived with his family.

It illegally arrived in Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 20, before moving to Bari in southern Italy on October 9.