Killer smuggled £84k to his family in Tunisia days before Nice massacre – as neighbour reveals he knifed daughter’s teddy in divorce meltdown
Neighbours and family have described Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel as suffering from longstanding and serious mental health problems
A TERRORIST trucker who massacred partygoers had longstanding mental health issues and sent £84,000 to relatives in Tunisia just days before the attack.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel's problems were said to date back to 2002 and went unaddressed when he moved to France, his family revealed today.
reported Bouhlel had persuaded friends to smuggle bundles of cash back to his hometown of Msaken.
His brother Jaber Bouhlel told the website his brother was not an ISIS terrorist - as the group today claimed - but a man who was mentally unwell.
"He used to send us small sums of money regularly like most Tunisians working abroad. But then he sent us all that money, it was (a) fortune.
"He sent the money illegally. He gave cash to people he knew who were returning to our village and asked them to give it to the family."
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It has also emerged that Bouhlel - who had a history if violent convictions - had suffered serious mental health issues.
Neighbours of Bouhlel said he was prone to uncontrollable fits of rage and had a meltdown when he split up with his wife.
One said: "We often used to hear him shouting and throwing things around.
"When he split up with his wife, he defecated everywhere in the flat, shredded his daughter’s teddy-bear with a knife and slashed the mattresses."
Speaking from his home in Msaken, Tunisia his father Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej-Bouhlel said: “He had some difficult periods. I had to take him psychiatrist who gave him medicine. He had a very serious illness.
"From 2002 to 2004 he had problems that caused a nervous breakdown. He became angry, he shouted, he broke anything had was in front of him. But after he went to France, nothing was done about it.
“It’s been four years since he had been home, on special occasions his brothers and sisters would speak to him on the phone - that’s it.
“What I do know, is that he never prayed, he never went to mosque, he had nothing to do with religion.
“He didn’t pray, he never did Ramadan, he didn’t do these sorts of things.
“He didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t talk about it with him. He was alone, depressed, always alone.
“His mother would ask him - ‘why do you never speak?’ and he would reply ‘because I don’t want to talk.’
“He did not know people, he never sent us presents, he never said hello.”
Armed cops swooped on two addresses in central Nice yesterday arresting four people.
Two men who knew the killer were arrested at one address when a swat team of armour police officers smashed their way into an apartment at 6am. A third man was arrested at a separate address.
Police also cordoned off a Grey renault car near the city’s train station.
The owner of the rental company - where the killer lorry was hired - said Bouhlal had chosen the biggest vehicle in their fleet.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said: “It was the heaviest and biggest we have.
“We only rent out lorries here, not weapons, not Kalashnikovs.
“We are all so shocked, we are from Nice and we’re thinking about all of these families.”
Cops arrested another man a few streets away - again at 6am - waking startled neighbours as they hammered on the door.
Retired Fernando Jannone, 80, said: "I heard a boom, boom, boom and they banged on the door.
"The police pushed in the door and dragged someone out.
"My door was closed so I didn't see anything. This is a very calm place - a very good apartment building with no problems. It's a big shock for this to happen here."
One of the men arrested was named as Arefa Ramzie, 22 who was arrested in a dawn raid at 6am on Saturday morning on the Rue Marceou.
His sister Arefa Bilet, 17, said: "The police arrived at 6am and took my brother away. My brother is not a terrorist. We are Muslim but by my brother is not religious. He drinks, he smokes, he goes out.
"He was among the victims on the promenade on Thursday night. He was there with my older brother and his friends. He was not near the lorry but when he saw running he ran away too. He arrived back at the apartment later that evening.
"He had no idea that there was going to be a terrorist attack. He returned here that night and said he was shocked by it."
His mother,49, who did not want to be named said : "The police arrived his morning. We were asleep.
They fired at the door opposite. Then they fired at our door. The police turned out home upside down. They handcuffed my son and took him away.
"My son is innocent, I have all the proof that he is innocent. They took all our phones. My God, my son does not know the terrorist who did this. He is normal, he goes out with his friends to cafes and restaurants."
Bouhlel was unmasked yesterday as the “Bastard of Bastille” who ploughed a 24-tonne truck through celebrating crowds of innocent people.
A violent profile of the mass killer emerged after cops revealed he had a history of petty crime, including burglary and theft.
He received a six-month suspended sentence for violent conduct in March after hurling a wooden pallet at a driver in a road rage attack.
Neighbours describe him as a “weird loner” with “George Clooney hair” who was going through a messy divorce after his wife kicked him out two years ago.
But relatives claim the father-of-three was an unlikely Islamic terrorist as he drank alcohol, ate pork and drugs.
He never prayed or attended mosque recently sacked from his delivery driver job after he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into four vehicles on a highway and been involved in a bar brawl, it emerged.
Bouhlel hails from Msaken, in Tunisia, just a few miles from the beach resort of Sousse where an ISIS gunman massacred 30 British holidaymakers.
But Bouhlel himself was not known to anti-terrorist investigators in France.
Police carried out a controlled explosion on a hired lorry parked near his town centre flat and detained his wife after a raid on a flat in northern Nice.
A neighbour, who gave her name as Jasmine, 40 said Bouhlel was a “loner who was rude.”
She added: “He was rude and bit weird. We would hold the door open for him and he would just blank us. He kept himself to himself but would always rant about his wife.
“He had marital problems and would tell people in the local cafe.
“He scared my children though. They will be scarred by this. They were down there last night - they are 13 and 7 - they could have been involved."
She added: “He was very smart with the same haircut as George Clooney.”
His neighbour - who lived next door - and didn’t want to be named, said: “To be honest I hardly ever saw him.
“He was well dressed, and the last time I saw him he was with two other guys.
“I can’t remember when it was.”
Other neighbours described Bouhlel as a ‘lonely’ and ‘silent’ man, with one saying he never returned their greetings.
One said: “He was more into women than religion.”
A neighbour of Bouhlel’s wife, who only gave her name as Newal, said: “The wife and her family are lovely. They are nice people.
“But the husband - he was weird and bizarre.
“It was what caused the problem. And he was really horrible to her, he would beat and hit the wife.
“She was much better when she left him.”
A cousin of Bouhlel’s wife Hajer Khalfallah, said: “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.”
Bouhlel was known to local police but not placed on any terrorist watch list set up after the Paris attacks last November.
French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said Bouhlel was convicted for violent conduct in March.
He said: “There was an altercation between him and another driver and he hurled a wooden pallet at the man.”
As it was his first conviction, Bouhlel was given a suspended sentence and had to contact police once a week, which he did, Urvoas added.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said: “His wife was placed in protective custody this morning at 11am.
“He was known to police for several crimes of violence, theft and criminal damage between 2010 and 2016 and was convicted on March 24 2016 in Nice of a suspended six month sentence for violence with weapon committed in January.
“He was not known at a national level and had never shown any signs of radicalisation.”
Tunisian security officials said Bouhlel came from the Tunisian town of Msaken which he last visited four years ago.
Msaken is about 10 km (six miles) outside the beach resort of Sousse where 38 people, including 30 British holidaymakers, were killed by ISIS gunman Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi, in June last year.
It is claimed in Tunisia that his father was a known extremist member of the Ennahdha Islamic party, which was banned until 2011.
Sources claim that some relatives of the Nice trucker were convicted for Islamic extremism during the period of deposed President Ben Ali and then leave benefiting general amnesty of 2011.
But Bouhlel was not known by the Tunisian authorities to hold radical or Islamist views, sources said.
French authorities were quizzing his estranged wife and other family members.
What we know so far
- A 19-tonne truck ploughed into Bastille Day revellers watching a firework display at around 10.30pm on Thursday night in the French Riviera town of Nice.
- At least 84 people were killed as the truck zig-zagged for 30 minutes along a 2km-long promenade in a bid to strike as many people as possible.
- Nearly 202 were injured, with 25 on life-support and 52 critical in hospital.
- Police killed the driver of the truck in a firefight as he sat at the wheel of the vehicle.
- Authorities confirmed the truck was loaded with guns and grenades.
- Local media has identified the attacker as Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel - a 31-year-old French Tunisian and father-of-three.
- Neighbours described Bouhlel as a “loner” as police scoured his flat on Friday afternoon.
- No group has officially claimed responsibility for the attack but ISIS-related groups have celebrated atrocity online.
- French president Francois Hollande said: “All of France is under the threat of Islamic terrorism.”
- Among the first victims named were American father Sean Copeland, 51, and his son Brodie, 11, along with Russian finance student Victoria Savchenko, 21.
The crazed gunman ploughed through men, women and children “like a bowling ball” for more than a mile before opening fire.
Dramatic footage also emerged of brave victims trying to stop the attack by clinging to the doors of the lorry before being thrown under the wheels and becoming “jammed”.
After being stopped by armed police, who sprayed more than 40 bullets into the lorry’s windscreen, the attacker exchanged fire with officers using a 7.65 pistol, before being shot dead.
Police said a huge arsenal of guns, grenades and "larger weapons" were found in the vehicle alongside the driver, as pro-ISIS groups celebrated the horror massacre.
More than 50 children were taken to hospital after the atrocity at around 10.30pm on Thursday night.
The first victims were today named as American dad and son Sean Copeland, 51 and Brodie, 11.
Sean and Brodie were on a “dream holiday” to the south of France from Texas and were confirmed dead by friends and family online.
Haley Copeland wrote: “By now many of you have heard about the 80 people that have died in Nice, France today from a terrorist attack driving through a parade.
“Two of those 80 people were American and those two people happen to be uncle Sean and 11-year-old cousin Brodie.
“They were on vacation with my two other cousins and aunt celebrating a birthday.”