The truck driver who crushed at least 84 people to death along Nice’s beachfront in France on Thursday night was yesterday identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian living in Nice.
His wife’s cousin dismissed him as an ‘unlikely jihadist’ who flouted every rule of Islam including taking alcohol, eating pork and indulging in drugs
MailOnline yesterday quoted Walid Hamou, a cousin of Bouhlel’s wife Hajer Khalfallah , as saying: ”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 beat his wife, my cousin, he was a nasty piece of work.”
The French police were said to have put him under their radar since January for petty criminality.
He had at a time lost his job as a delivery driver after falling asleep at the wheel and crashing into four cars and had also been involved in a bar brawl.
He drove a large truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day along Nice’s beachfront on Thursday, killing at least 84 people, many of them children, according to police and hospital officials. The slaughter ended only after police killed the armed attacker in a hail of bullets.
Bouhlel’s wife was taken into protective custody by police yesterday.
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.
Wissam, a Tunisian neighbor 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.’”
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