The state of health of the author of the knife attack in the basilica of Nice, which left three dead, deteriorated, delaying his hearing by several days.
The vital prognosis of Brahim I., 21, who tested positive for the coronavirus, was still engaged on Wednesday. Seriously wounded by gunshot Thursday while threatening the police in the church after the attack, he is still hospitalized in Nice.
Two police custody still in progress
Two police custody was still in progress Wednesday evening: a new police custody began this afternoon after the arrest in Seine-Saint-Denis of a 17-year-old minor suspected of having been in contact by courier with Brahim I.
Another custody, started on Tuesday, was also still in progress: a 29-year-old Tunisian, arrested Tuesday morning in Sarcelles, in Val-d’Oise. He is suspected of having had several exchanges with the assailant during his migratory journey.
Four other police custody were, however, lifted on Wednesday, without prosecution at this stage, bringing to ten the number of people placed in police custody and then released since the start of the investigation.
A 29-year-old Tunisian national, arrested in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes) on Saturday, was released during the day without prosecution at this stage.
The man, Ahmed BA, was questioned for four days about his links to the assailant, with whom he had traveled aboard the boat that brought them on September 20 to the Italian island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean. The two men would then have made their way to France.
The attacker arrived two days before the attack
The investigation was able to determine that the assailant, who had left the city of Sfax (central Tunisia) in mid-September, where he lived with his family, arrived in Nice on Tuesday, October 27, two days before the attack. Early on the morning of the incident, he went to a prayer room located a few hundred meters behind Nice central station.
He then headed for the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption basilica, where he slaughtered a 60-year-old woman, Nadine Devillers, and the sacristan, Vincent Loquès, 55. A 44-year-old Brazilian mother, Simone Barreto Silva, stabbed several times in the building, died in a nearby restaurant where she had taken refuge.
Jean Castex on site for the national tribute on Saturday
Prime Minister Jean Castex will travel to Nice on Saturday, for the national tribute to the three victims of the attack, LCI reports. The ceremony will take place in the park of the Colline du Château in Nice.
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