Italian Police Arrest Man Suspected of Helping 2016 Nice Attacker

Italian Police Arrest Man Suspected of Helping 2016 Nice Attacker
In this still image from video, Italian police arrest Endri Elezi, 28, suspected of supplying weapons to Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the man who killed 86 people in July 2016 by driving a truck through a seafront crowd in the French city of Nice, in Sparanise near Caserta, Italy, on April 21, 2021. Polizia di Stato/Handout via Reuters
Reuters
Updated:

ROME—Italian police said on Thursday they had arrested an Albanian man suspected of supplying weapons to Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who killed 86 people in July 2016 by driving a truck through a seafront crowd in the French city of Nice.

Police said Endri Elezi, 28, was seized in the late hours of Wednesday in Sparanise, a town close to Caserta, in southern Italy. France had issued a European arrest warrant for him.

Bouhlel, a Tunisian citizen, was shot dead by police after he carried out the attack at the Promenade des Anglais on July 14, 2016, France’s national Bastille day holiday.

“The arrest of Endri Elezi ... confirms the great skills of the state police’s counter-terrorism investigators and the effectiveness of the international cooperation,” Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese said in a statement.

By Angelo Amante