NICE, France, July 17, 2016 (UPI/LA Times) A UC Berkeley student missing in Nice since Thursday’s terror attack has been confirmed dead, according to university officials, the LA Times reported Sunday.
Nicolas Leslie, 20, was on a study-abroad program and had gone to the city’s Promenade des Anglais to watch the Bastille Day fireworks when a truck plowed through the packed crowd, killing 84 and injuring hundreds more. A frantic search by university and local officials, and family began after Leslie was reported missing after the attack.
Three other UC Berkeley students were injured, two with broken legs and one with a broken foot.
French authorities arrested two additional suspects — a man and a woman — Sunday in connection with the terror attack.
Agnes Thibault Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor, said the two were taken into custody for questioning, but gave no details.
Five other people were questioned and four remained detained. The attacker’s ex-wife was released from custody Sunday morning.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, drove a 19-ton truck almost a mile through revelers on the Mediterranean city’s waterfront Thursday. He was shot to death by police.
More than 200 were injured and 75 remain hospitalized, including 18 in life-threatening condition, Health Minister Marisol Touraine said Sunday. Five children remain in intensive care.
New details are emerging about the attacker.
Bouhlel scouted out the promenade twice before the attack — on Tuesday and Wednesday, the prosecutor’s office told NBC News. Surveillance footage shows him in the truck he used to carry out the carnage, he said.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters Saturday that Bouhlel “appears to have become radicalized very quickly.”
He was “entirely unknown by the intelligence services, whether nationally or locally,” French prosecutor Francois Molins said.
Police knew about him because of threats, violence and thefts over the past six years. He received a suspended six-month prison sentence this year after a violence with a weapon conviction, authorities said.
Bouhlel’s father, who lives in Tunisia, said he had multiple nervous breakdowns and volatile behavior, CNN reported.
The Islamic State’s media group, Amaq Agency, said an IS “soldier” carried out the attack.
In a statement Saturday, it said “the person … carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition which is fighting the Islamic State.”
Bouhlel, a resident of Nice, had a permit to live and work in France. He was born in Tunisia.
