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French police investigating the terrorist attack in Nice arrested three more men, bringing the number of people detained for questioning to six.
A 29-year-old Tunisian was arrested in Grasse on Saturday, and two other men aged 63 and 25 were later brought in for questioning from the same address. They join two men aged 33 and 35 who were picked up on Saturday and a 47-year-old man who has been in detention since Thursday.
Police say data from two phones belonging to the alleged attacker, Brahim Aouissaoui, and CCTV footage suggest that he arrived in Nice late on October 27 on a train from Rome, between 24 and 48 hours before Thursday’s attack. in the morning.
He was filmed near the basilica on Wednesday and during the night he called his family, who live near Sfax in Tunisia, to tell them he was in France and that he would sleep outside.
At 8:29 on Thursday he entered the Notre Dame de l’Assomption basilica and is accused of carrying out an attack that left the 60-year-old worshiper Nadine Devillers and the church sacristan Vincent Loquès, 55, dead and Simone Barreto Silva , 44 with fatal injuries. Silva managed to run out of the basilica and collapsed at a nearby restaurant where he died.
In addition to the large knife that Aouissaoui supposedly used to kill the three, he had two more knives and a Quran in a backpack. Police shot him several times and are still waiting to interview him at the hospital where he is recovering from serious injuries.
The French researchers are working with their counterparts in Italy and Tunisia. It is known that Aouissaoui made the crossing from Tunisia to Lampedusa in Italy, arrived on September 20 and spent a month in Covid-19 quarantine. He was in Bari, southern Italy, on October 9, but after being denied asylum, he disappeared.
Churches in France were under additional protection on Sunday, All Saints’ Day, after the country’s security alert was raised to its highest level.
Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, was due to attend a ceremony of “contemplation” on Sunday evening at the Notre Dame basilica.
Muslims were present for Mass in various cities, including Blois and Toulouse, as a show of respect for the victims of last week’s attack. Lahouary Siali, an imam from Toulouse, said they also wanted to “reject the jihadists.”
“These people have no spirit or reason and want to make another interpretation [of the Qur’an] that we firmly reject, ”he told AFP. “We have not ordained anyone and we have not empowered anyone to speak on our behalf. In the name of what philosophy, what spirituality have you come to take the lives of innocent people?
A group of young Muslims in Lodève, in the Hérault west of Montpellier, turned out to symbolically protect their local Saint-Fulcran cathedral after Thursday’s attack, saying they were sick of being stigmatized and insulted on social media.
“We are French, we were born and raised in Lodève, a place where different communities coexist. There is a cathedral and a mosque and there are never interreligious problems, ”said Elyazid, who organized the meeting.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told La Voix du Nord on Sunday that Aouissaoui “was only present in our national territory for a few hours. He had clearly come to kill. Otherwise, how do you explain that he had just arrived and had several knives? Of course, it is up to the antiterrorist prosecutor to establish how his murderous project was planned, but clearly he did not come to obtain papers.
He said France had sent “hundreds of additional policemen” to the Italian border, but added: “Unlike the far right, I do not wish to see a terrorist in every foreigner.”
Recent attacks in France have led to a series of acts of vandalism against mosques in the country. Two people were arrested over the weekend after being caught spraying graffiti at the Panitin Mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis, which has been closed for six months for broadcasting a video criticizing Samuel Paty’s course in which he showed the students caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.
Four mosques in Rouen were also reported to have received threatening letters after the Nice attack. Further south, in the Drôme, a Muslim prayer room was marked with crosses.
