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A man who allegedly killed three people at a church in Nice spoke to his family in a video call from outside the building hours before the attack, his sister revealed.
Terror suspect Brahim Aouissaoui is in critical condition at the hospital after police shot him several times after the attack on worshipers in the church of Notre Dame.
Family members said on Friday he was a “friendly person” who had shown no signs of extremism and spoke of their shock at his arrest for such a violent atrocity.
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The 21-year-old mechanic from Tunisia walked to the church shortly after arriving in the southern French city that same morning and was looking for a place to sleep, his sister Afef said.
He had shown them the area and said that he planned to rest in a building in front of the place of worship.
After watching a television report showing the aftermath of the attack, they immediately recognized the place as the area that Aouissaoui showed them during the video call.
His mother, Gamra Issawi, said: “She called me yesterday and told me that she had arrived in France, and I replied, ‘Why? Why didn’t you stay in Italy? You don’t speak French and I don’t know someone there, without link, no relationship. Why did you do that (travel to France)? ‘”
Aouissaoui’s older brother Yassin said: “My brother is a friendly person and never showed extremism.
“He respected all other people and accepted their differences even as a child.”
Brahim Aouissaoui’s mother, Gamra Issawi, says she spoke with her son shortly after he arrived in Nice.
Relatives of the suspect gathered at the family home in Thyna, a suburb of Sfax in Tunisia.
He added: “He did not say (that he planned to leave Tunisia) and we were surprised when he told us that he had arrived in Italy.”
After arriving on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa on September 20, Aouissaoui entered France, traveling through the southern Italian city of Bari on October 9.
He arrived in Nice by train yesterday morning and changed clothes at the station, before walking 400 meters to the Notre Dame church, where he allegedly killed a 60-year-old woman and a 55-year-old church worker Vincent Loques. , father of -two.
She and Mr. Loques died at the scene, while the third victim, Simone Barreto Silvaa, a 44-year-old mother of three born in Brazil, left the church to a nearby cafe and raised the alarm before dying of her injuries. .
Victim Vincent Loques, who was a 55-year-old church worker, died at the scene.
Simone Barreto Silva, a mother of three, managed to leave the church to raise the alarm before dying
Security sources in Tunisia said Aouissaoui’s family is also being investigated, and her sister Afef said police had taken their phones.
A neighbor described Aouissaoui as a young man who was friends with other young people in the area and was not known to be part of any militant religious group.
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Meanwhile, Mohsen Dali, an official in the Tunisian judiciary, said Aouissaoui was arrested in 2016 for violence and use of a knife.
Tunisian authorities have also authorized an investigation into whether a group called the Mahdi Organization exists and carried out the Nice attack, based on claims of responsibility made on social media, the state news agency TAP reported.
French authorities have said that Aouissaoui was unknown to the security services.
A reason because the Nice attack is not yet known.
