17 JULY 2016 • 7:53AM
The terrorist behind the Bastille Day atrocity was radicalised within months and sent his Tunisian family £84,000 just days before the massacre, it was claimed on Saturday.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel's brother in Tunisia described receiving the fortune in cash as police swooped to arrest five suspected associates across the city of Nice
The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the attacker "appears to have become radicalised very quickly" as one neighbour of his estranged wife added: "Mohamed only started visiting a mosque in April."
Bastile Day attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, pictured last year in Nice, France CREDIT: MATRIX
Investigators examining Bouhlel’s phone records found evidence that he was in contact with known Islamic radicals.
However, an intelligence source cautioned: “That could just be a coincidence, given the neighbourhood where he lived. Everyone knows everyone there. He seems to have known people who knew Omar Diaby (a known local Islamist believed to be linked with the Al Nusra group close to Al Qaeda)."
Jaber received money from his brother, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, days before the attack CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
Relatives have reportedly claimed Bouhlel, in the days before the attack, persuaded friends to smuggle the bundles of cash back to his family in their hometown of Msaken, Tunisia.
His brother Jaber also said he had not seen his brother for several years and the money had come as a complete surprise.
Five people thought to know Bouhlel were still being questioned by police this afternoon, including his estranged wife who went to a police station of her own accord.
Among those arrested was Ramzie Arefa, 22, at his family apartment on Rue Marceau, about a mile inland from where the deadly attacks took place on July 15.
His sister, Chaima Arefa, 17, denied he had links to the killer and instead said he had been an innocent bystander on the promenade
as Bouhlel ploughed his lorry into the crowd.
She told The Telegraph: "My brother is not a terrorist. We are Muslim but by my brother is not religious. He drinks, he smokes, he goes out."
The raids came after the prime minister, Manuel Valls, said on national television on Friday evening that he was “a terrorist undoubtedly linked with radical Islam in one way or another.”
Bouhlel had been depressed and out of work in recent months, sparking suggestions that the money may have been from a terror group.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls attends a defence meeting two days after the attack CREDIT: REUTERS
"Mohamed sent the family 240,000 Tunisian Dinars (£84,000) in the last few days," Bouhlel's brother told the MailOnline website. "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."
However, Bouhlel's father insisted the killer had "nothing to do with religion" and had been plagued by mental health problems for more than a decade.
Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej-Bouhlel told French media from his home in Tunisia: "He had some difficult periods. I had to take him psychiatrist who gave him medicine. He he had a very serious illness."
Jaber, the brother of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
"From 2002 to 2004 he had problems that caused a nervous breakdown. He became angry, he shouted, he broke anything that 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 was alone, depressed, always alone."
Bouhlel had been estranged from his wife for two years and they were "not on good terms" as the killer was convicted over a road rage incident in March.
His family live in an impoverished neighbourhood in Msaken, some 90 miles south of the Tunisian capital Tunis. Msaken is also just 12 miles from Sousse, where
Tunisian gunman Seifeddine Rezgui massacred 38 holidaymakers in June 2015.
Meanwhile, President Hollande, under fire for complacency and failing to prevent the Bastille Day massacre and previous terrorist attacks in France, issued a call for national unity today.
After a meeting of ministers at the Elysee Palace in Paris chaired by Mr Hollande, the government spokesman, agriculture minister Stephane Le Foll, said the president wanted to rally
the nation in the difficult aftermath of the slaughter of 84 people on the beachfront Promenade des Anglais.
... muuten jaa turhan monelta kaikki hesarin, ylen ja bbc:n urlit tsekkaamatta ihan periaatteesta (ehka).
...Historiaa nimittäin riittää.
