© French police source / AFPThis image obtained by AFP on July 15, 2016 from a French police source shows a reproduction of the residence permit of Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the man who rammed his truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice on July 14
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had a
long history of violence and mental illness, his family back in his homeland of Tunisia said, while insisting he showed
no obvious signs of radicalization prior to Thursday's attack that left at least 84 people dead.
"My brother had psychological problems, and we have given the police documents showing that
he had been seeing psychologists for several years," Rabeb Bouhlel, his sister, told Reuters.
The 31-year-old Lahouaiej Bouhlel left Tunisia for France back in 2005, and did not keep in regular contact with his family, who live in modest accommodations in the village Msaken outside Sousse, a coastal resort that has also been targeted by an Islamist attack.
His family, which has literally chased away the media camped outside their house on several occasions, have refused to acknowledge that Lahouaiej Bouhlel was a terrorist.
"From 2002 to 2004 he had problems that
led to a nervous breakdown," his father Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej Bouhlel told several French channels in an interview outside his home, while brandishing his son's clinical evaluations before the cameras.
"He'd get angry and shout and break everything around him.
He was violent and very ill. We took him to the doctor and
he was put on drugs. Whenever there was a crisis, we took him back again. He was always alone. Always silent, refusing to talk. Even in the street, he wouldn't greet people."
According to his father, after moving to France,
Lahouaiej Bouhlel had "no connection with religion. He didn't fast or keep Ramadan. He drank. He even took drugs."
In what may not be a coincidence, the men responsible for the Paris attacks last November also had a similar history of dead-end jobs, petty crime, drinking, and gambling, before apparently rapidly converting to the Islamist cause just months before their deaths.
Although he last saw his family in Tunisia in 2012 when he traveled back for his sister's wedding,
in recent weeks Lahouaiej Bouhlel's behavior radically changed.
"Over the past month, he was calling us every day and he sent us money... He called several times a day," explained Rebab.
© Fethi Belaid / AFPJaber, the brother of 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel the driver of the truck that killed at least 84 and injured dozens in the French Riviera city of Nice, looks on as he stands outside his family home in Msaken on July 15, 2016
His brother Jaber Bouhlel told the Daily Mail that the family received 240,000 Tunisian dinar (almost $110,000) from Mohamed in the past few weeks - a surprisingly large sum for a low-paid deliveryman."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 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," said Jaber.
Ibrahim Bouhlel, a nephew, said that
Mohamed even promised to travel back to Tunisia for a family party this week.
However, the next time his family saw him was in pictures in the news.
"We're all in a state of shock at what's happened," said his father.
In a TV interview on Friday night, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that Lahouaiej Bouhlel "was likely a terrorist,"but police had not yet figured out if he had received financial support and training from Islamist organizations, or had simply subscribed to the ideology.
Of the same bullshit lies that is foisted upon an innocent population . An innocent population that wanted nothing more than to spend an evening with family and friends in a beautiful area of France by the sea, a tourist hotspot.
Instead what was to be a beautiful evening of fun friendship, community. A gathering of humanity in the blink of an eye turned into an area of devastation and slaughter, many have had there lives changed forever, my heart goes out everyone of them.
I am angry, how much longer will we as a people, as humanity, continue to be blind to the crimes that have been perpetrated against us. We ask for the governments of the world to save and protect us.
What do they do nothing!
Our voices are lost, nobody hears our cries. All they do is implement more controls over our movements our media, our emails they way we live our lives, all socially engineered to comply with there vision of reality, the reality creators, that's what they call themselves. And why because they can create our reality by all the propaganda in MSM . They lead us day by day month, by month, year by and those same lies we pass on to our children, the cycle begins again.
Does this stop terrorism. No! we have to get used to it and live in fear, terror, insecurity.
And that is just what they want, for people to live in fear, terror and insecurity
After seeing the recent coup in Turkey where the people actually supported Erdogan, the demon, so we are lead to believe ( I am beginning to doubt that profile) actually came out in droves and helped defeat the coup. Makes me wonder what is truth and what are lies.
If that same situation could/would/ happen in the West. Who would be there to save them we the people, not the EU Parliament, not the countries of the EU they walk around like chickens with there head cut off asking NATO what they should next.
Only we the people can save one another. I just wish we could realize that,
it's we the people the caring and compassion we show to one another if trying and desperate times that really matter.
Just some thoughts.