Chilling final text from Bastille Bastard before Nice terror attack which killed at least 84
He spoke to his brother before the attack who revealed his sibling 'seemed happy' and guesses 'his mind was made up'
THE crazed terrorist who mowed down 84 innocents in France spoke to his brother from the cab of his lorry just before his murderous rampage, and sent a chilling text to an unknown number with a final foreboding message.
And he was said to have been inspired by friends who aided the Tunisian beach massacre, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
The 2015 atrocity in Sousse, which left 30 British tourists dead among the 38 victims, "focused and thrilled" Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a family friend revealed yesterday.
The revelation came as his brother, today pictured posing for the camera armed with guns, told how the killer gave no hint of the carnage he was would inflict just moments after their phone call.
Also revealed today is the chilling last text message Lahouaiej-Bouhlel sent, which read: "I have the material".
It is not known who he sent it to, but anti-terror police uncovered the foreboding message which suggests he was not alone in planning the brutal attack.
Experts are now frantically tracing the recipients number to uncover anyone else linked to the slaughter in Nice.
According to sources quoted by French TV, an earlier text found on the killer's phone read: "Bring more weapons. Bringing in 5."
These texts are reported to have been sent from the mobile phone found in the lorry cab, along with the killer's driving licence and bank card.
He told me he was happy and everything in his life was normal.
Jabeur Boiuhel
One message was sent at 10.27pm to one of the men now in custody and ended: "Bringing in five to C."
He even sent a smirking selfie to his family just hours before the massacre.
His brother Jabeur Boiuhel, 20, said: “He sent a selfie and told me he was happy and everything in his life was normal.
“Later when we heard about what was happening in Nice we started to send him messages asking if he was all right.
We here were sending him messages until two in the morning.”
The student added: said: "I spoke to him when he was sat in the lorry that night. It's unbelievable.
A man who says he is the terrorists' wife's cousin called Walid-Hamou told the Independent he overheard Lahouaiej Bouhlel tell his neighbour: "He was heard arguing with someone who told him that he was worthless. Lahouaiej Bouhlel shouted back 'One day, you’ll hear about me'."
"He was calm and ice-cool. He seemed happy. I suppose his mind was made up.
"My brother owned a property, had £100,000 in the bank through selling phones, had three kids and was rebuilding his life by getting divorced after his marriage went bad. I thought he was in a good place.
"He could get aggressive but I never thought he was violent. I just don't believe what happened.
"We spoke on Bastille Day, even before he was in the cab. He told me he was enjoying the festival.
"We were in touch all the time. We were planning to set up a business together.
"They showed his body under a blanket on TV. I froze because I recognised his shoes. They were his favourite pair. I couldn't believe it.
"I'm waiting for the autopsy for proof it was really him, my brother."
His father said his mass-murderer son, who aimed the 19-tonne vehicle into families celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, wiping out 10 children in an instant, was on medication for regularly being gripped by fear.
Speaking from his rundown, crumbling home in Msaken, Tunisia, just six miles from last year's massacre, his distraught farmer father Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej-Bouhlel opened up about his monster son, who he last saw eight months ago.
He told The Sun on Sunday: “We are in shock. He was the second best student in Sousse region just years ago.
"He had some difficult periods. I had to take him to a psychiatrist who gave him medicine. He had a very serious illness.
"From 2002 to 2004 he had problems that caused a nervous breakdown. He became angry, he shouted, he broke anything had was in front of him.
“But after he went to France, nothing was done about it.
“On special occasions his brothers and sisters would speak to him on the phone - that’s it.
“What I do know, is that he never prayed, he never went to mosque, he had nothing to do with religion. He didn’t pray, he never did Ramadan, he didn’t do these sorts of things.
“He didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t talk about it with him. He was alone, depressed, always alone.
“His mother would ask him - ‘why do you never speak?’ and he would reply ‘because I don’t want to talk.’
“He did not know people, he never sent us presents, he never said hello.”
Bouhlel's horrified parents were locked up in their home last night fearing reprisals from angry locals, as the the area whose tourism was near eradicated a year ago is put back in the spotlight.
Monthir, looking lost and scared, said: "My son married his cousin and then they moved to France. They had three children. I thought they were happy.
"But the marriage was in trouble. His wife spent a lot of time with her mother who also moved to Nice.
"My son felt his wife had abandoned him and their three children. They were divorcing.
"He was not well.
"He took his treatment, his medicine, and we thought he was doing well - here's the
medical certificate.
"I took him to the psychologist, he followed his treatment but sometimes he would have nervous breakdowns and he would break everything and demolish everything.
"He has had a nervous problem and when he becomes nervous he breaks everything.
"He had problems with his wife and I think that added to his mental health issues."
A neighbour of his shocked family told The Sun on Sunday: "There is much disbelief and horror here.
"The parents didn't believe their son was capable of this depravity.
"They told me they fear that Bouhlel knew those who helped the terrorism in Sousse last year.
"That apocalyptic attack excited and thrilled him and gave his warped imagination traction to dare to plan another senseless act of terror.
"The family believe it's the murderous events near his home town of Msaken which inspired his treachery.
"Police have been asking questions about his friends from Tunisia and what sort of contact he had with them over the last 12 months."
Seifiddine Rezgui Yacoubi, a 23-year-old electrical engineering student from Gaafour, in north west Tunisia, was behind the horrific Sousse bullet spree.
But he was helped by fanatics living close to the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel at Port El Kantaoui.
Tunisia's Interior Ministry said terror sympathisers - said to include associates of Bouhlel - did not participate directly, but provided the Kalashnikov, and led Rezgui to the scene.
Rezgui was thought to have been recruited by Ajnad al-Khilafah, an outgrowth of the Tunisian branch of Ansar al-Sharia, which was founded by Saifallah Ben Hassine, who had lived in the UK in the 1990s and whose mentor during that time was Abu Qatada.
Intelligence services were last night understood to be probing Bouhlel's likely links to the same terror networks.
The delivery man was identified by his fingerprints after his driver's licence, mobile phone and credit card were found inside the vehicle by police who shot him dead.
He no longer lived with his wife, but she was detained for questioning by police on Friday.
A woman who knows the family said that Bouhlel, who was not known by the Tunisian authorities to hold radical or Islamist views but had a history of violent convictions, was thrown out of their home in the Le Ray area of Nice more than a year ago after allegedly beating his wife.
Locals say did not seem overtly religious and was often seen drinking beer and never attended the small mosque near his block of flats.
Anan, who lived on the ground floor, said she was suspicious of him because he was "a good-looking man who kept giving my two daughters the eye".
One woman recalled that he was nice to her and helped her all the time. But, she said, his behaviour was sometimes "strange".
He once asked to rent her mailbox and when she refused he had called her "nasty", she added. When she learnt of the attack, she immediately wondered if he might have been involved.
On Friday morning, investigators and forensic experts raided his flat and seized a telephone and computer.
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Assault Prosecutor Francois Molins later told a news conference that the brute had been in trouble with police between 2010 and 2016 for threatening behaviour, violence and petty theft.
In March, a court in Nice convicted him of assaulting a motorist with an improvised weapon - a wooden pallet - during an altercation and handed him a six-month suspended prison sentence. He had to contact police once a week, which he did.
The 19-tonne refrigerated lorry used in the attack was rented on 11 July in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, just to the west of Nice.
Armed cops swooped on four other people in Nice yesterday who knew the killer.
The owner of the rental company - where the lorry was hired - said Bouhlal had chosen the biggest vehicle in their fleet.
ISIS yesterday said that they had not directly organised the attack - but had inspired the Tunisian born delivery driver to carry out his murderous rampage.