Nice attacker recruited by Algerian IS member, says uncle

 

France held a countrywide moment of silence on Monday to remember the victims, but the national mourning was punctured by anger and political division.

 

Crowds massed on the Riviera seafront booed the visiting prime minister, whose Socialist government is coming under increasing criticism from the public and the conservative opposition for failing to prevent the Bastille Day carnage.

 

IS claimed responsibility for last week's attack, though Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday that investigators have found no sign yet that attacker Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel had links to a particular network.

 

The driver's uncle, Sadok Bouhlel, told The Associated Press in Tunisia that given Bouhlel's family problems, he was estranged from his wife and three children, the Algerian extremist "found in Mohamed an easy prey for recruitment."

 

French officials couldn't confirm Monday that attacker Bouhlel had been approached by an Algerian recruiter, saying that the investigation is ongoing.

 

Bouhlel's rapid radicalisation has puzzled investigators. Friends and family said he hadn't been an observant Muslim in the past. Cazeneuve said Monday on RTL radio that the driver may have been motivated by IS messages, but not necessarily coordinating with a larger network.

 

"Mohamed didn't pray, didn't go to the mosque and ate pork," said the uncle, a 69-year-old retired teacher, in the driver's hometown of Msaken, Tunisia.

 

The uncle said he learned about the Algerian recruiter from extended family members who live in Nice.

 

Dr Raj Persaud, a consultant psychiatrist and professor at London's Gresham College, said Bouhlel's path toward violent extremism might have been longer than people around him noticed.

 

"This is someone who was already deeply disturbed and had already been on a journey, and at the end of it, maybe there was what looks like a rapid process of radicalization. But that was just what crystallised his beliefs, a lot of the huge transformation had already occurred in the background," he said.

 

Sadok Bouhlel is devastated by his nephew's act, and doesn't want him buried in Msaken.

 

"He made more than 80 families grieve, and stained the reputation of our town and our country," he said.

 

Many of the dead and injured were children watching fireworks display with their families. Cazeneuve said 59 people were still hospitalised after Thursday's attack, 29 of them in intensive care, out of 308 people injured overall.