Who is the Nice terror attack suspect? Everything we know so far about Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel

What do we know about his background?

According to several French reports, Bouhlel was born in Tunisia in 1985 and had a French residency permit.

According to Tunisian security sources, he hailed from the Tunisian town of Msaken, which is close to the seaside city of Sousse, where 38 people, including 30 Britons, were gunned down by terrorists in June 2015. 

French television station BFMTV reported that he was a divorced father-of-three who had become depressed following the breakdown of his marriage.

Police raided his flat, where he reportedly lived alone, in the Abattoirs area of Nice on Friday morning. 

His wife was reportedly taken into protective custody and was questioned by police on Friday.  

'Depressed and unstable'

Neighbours described Bouhlel as a depressed – sometimes aggressive – man who was not particularly interested in religion, and kept to himself.

They said that he had been unhappy since he divorced his wife two years ago, and that he suffered from financial problems.

Those who lived near him said he had been "depressed and unstable, even aggressive" of late. They put this down to his "marital and financial problems".

One told BFMTV he was "more into women than religion".

"He (didn't) pray and like(d) girls and Salsa," according to BFM's crime correspondent.

One 40-year-old neighbour, who would only give her first name, Jasmine, said: "He was rude and a 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."

She added: "He was very smart, with the same haircut as George Clooney."

Another neighbour, Sébastien, said he "didn't have the appearance of a religious person and was often in shorts, sometimes wearing 'security' shoes".

Anan, who also lived near him, said she found him shifty and described him as "a good-looking man who eyed-up my two girls too much".

One resident told the Telegraph: "He was quiet and moody. I did not know whether he was a Muslim. I think he had a motorbike."

A woman living in the same block said: "I hardly knew him, but from what I could see he seemed very weird. He lived alone. He said very little to anyone and wasn’t very polite. He wouldn’t hold the door open for you."

Criminal record

He was known to the police for assault with a weapon, domestic violence, threats and robbery, but had no previous convictions for terrorism.

Investigating sources said his last appearance in a criminal court was as recent as March. He had previous convictions for armed theft, conjugal violence and threatening behaviour. Despite this, he had no known links with terrorism and was not under surveillance.

According to BFMTV he had also recently caused an accident after falling asleep at the wheel while working as a delivery driver, and was taken into custody following the incident.

French investigators have yet to find links between Bouhlel and the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the carnage, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told France's RTL radio on Monday.

"We cannot exclude that an unbalanced and very violent individual" has been "through a rapid radicalisation, committed to this absolutely despicable crime," he said.

Did he work alone?

Police are searching for any accomplices to the attack, which appears to have been premeditated. They found a pistol, a larger gun, and a number of fake weapons and grenades in his vehicle after the attack. 

It is believed he may have hired the lorry on Wednesday night and boarded it "in the hills of Nice" before driving down to the promenade, according to CCTV footage.

Seven people including a woman were in custody on Sunday night after the arrests earlier in the day of an Albanian couple suspected of aiding Bouhlel, described by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) as one its “soldiers”.

Suspects range from two Albanians suspected of supplying a pistol to Bouhlel, and others whose phone numbers appeared on the phone.

Another man, 37, arrested in Nice on Sunday is suspected of supplying arms to the killer after reportedly receiving messages saying: "Bring more weapons, bring five of them to C.”

More than 200 investigators were urgently working to determine the significance of ‘C’ and whether the killer had accomplices or links with a terrorist network.

Local newspaper Nice Matin quotes a police source saying they have found evidence the attacks were planned "for weeks or months".

Former neighbours in Tunisia say Bouhlel was not interested in religion

Residents of Msaken, the town 75 miles south of Tunis where Bouhlel lived until 2005, said he was disinterested in religion.

They described him as "sporty and distant". "Mohamed was a very normal guy," said Hamadi Bouhlel, a cousin. "He did sports regularly, fitness training, and he was very arrogant. He didn't talk with all the other young guys in the neighbourhood.”

A former neighbour who gave his name as Mansour told Reuters that Bouhlel did not go to the mosque to pray.  "He is from a large, normal family, not extremist at all," he said. "They're like the rest of us."

Bouhlel 'took drugs and used dating sites to pick up men and women'

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel's mobile phone records suggest he used dating websites to pick up male and female lovers and dabbled with drugs and drink, French media reported.

The handset was picked up by police officers after they shot him dead in a lorry that he had used to kill 84 people on the Promenade des Anglais, in the French city of Nice. 

Bouhlel's phone is said to be full of messages, videos and photographs, including ones of men and women he had recently slept with. 

"The testimony which investigators are relying on most is that of the mobile phone," reported the BFM TV news channel, basing their report on evidence leaked to them.