Duty, two days after Andrew Bolt's article blaming MuslimS; on balance it appears Mohammed Bouhlel was a non-practising Muslim. According to family and neighbours; not praying, not visiting mosques, not observing Ramadan, drinking alcohol, eating pork etc. He was known to have serious mental health issues and was supposed to be taking medications for that.
Please I make those comments after just reviewing the latest online news reports from about ten different sites ranging from the Herald-Sun to Al Jazeerah. Clearly, these are still early days and authorities have only just started investigating.
What are being reported as 'arrests' thus far appear to be people with known relationships with Mohammed Bouhlel [family including his former wife, people he interacted with, neighbours] being rounded up for interview, thereby enabling even the minutest detail to be investigated further.
Reports now suggest that people who knew him have indicated that Bouhlel drove along the promenade twice in the days before committing the atrocity - it's unsure as to whether this was abnormal since he did live in Nice after all but it apparently id not trigger any security concerns for authorities.
Given what happened, it seems incredible that authorities did not have been him on their watch list. One reported claimed Bouhlel recently sent $150,000 to family in Tunisia; again, answers are needed as to why someone with a police record for violence and theft was able to do such things without flagging an alert somewhere!
