Nice: investigators find photo of the murderer of Samuel Paty on the cell phone of the alleged assassin

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Police officers in front of the scene of the attack, the Notre-Dame church, in Nice

Photo: ERIC GAILLARD / REUTERS

Investigators have found a photo of the man on the cell phone of the alleged bomber in Nice who had killed the teacher Samuel Paty near Paris two weeks earlier for Islamist motives.

The French anti-terrorist prosecutor said that photos relating to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist militia were also stored on the 21-year-old's cell phone.

The Tunisian killed three people in an apparently Islamist-motivated attack in a church in Nice on October 29.

According to the prosecutor, a voice message was found on his cell phone in which he called France a "land of infidels".

Suspected perpetrator with gunshot wounds and Covid-19 in mortal danger

The man is therefore still lying in a Paris hospital with serious gunshot wounds and a coronavirus infection.

He cannot be interrogated yet.

According to the dpa news agency, he is still in mortal danger.

Two weeks before the act in Nice, the 47-year-old teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin near his school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.

The perpetrator was shot dead by the police shortly afterwards.

In the meantime, the case is being investigated against other suspects who are said to have been in contact with the alleged assassin.

The teacher Paty had discussed the subject of freedom of expression in class with his students and showed Mohammed cartoons.

According to their own statements, the investigators have now been able to reconstruct the route taken by the 21-year-old Tunisian to Nice.

Accordingly, he traveled to the city in the south of France via Sicily and Rome.

Now the prosecutor wants to determine whether he was assisted by accomplices in Tunisia, Italy or France, for example with the entry.

Several suspects were arrested in the days following the attack.

A 35-year-old is said to have been in contact with the alleged bomber about the day before the attack.

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fek / AFP / Reuters / AP