This is the selfie suspected Nice terror attacker Brahim Aouissaoui sent to his family just hours before worshippers were brutally killed at the Notre Dame Cathedral.
The 21-year-old sent this picture to friends back in Tunisia showing off his new clothes bought with money working illegally in Europe.
The image was taken at a shop in France the day before he walked into the cathedral, allegedly armed with two knives.
And he was wearing the same clothes – a red puffa jacket, white t-shirt, blue jeans and trainers – when he was shot by armed police after the attack.
Family and friends say he sent a series of pictures detailing his journey across the Mediterranean Sea from Tunisia over to Italy, and then to France.
But the purported extremist gave no hint of a plan to carry out a deadly attack on innocent worshippers, they told MailOnline.
His older brother Yassin, 38, said: ‘He bought new clothes and a mobile phone in France with the money he had earned working harvesting olives in Italy.
‘He was very proud of his new clothes and wanted to show us he was doing well. Brahim said he wanted to go to Europe to earn money to buy a car.
‘He made a lot of phone calls the night before the attack. He called us, the family and his friends.
‘He spent hours on the phone reassuring us that everything was fine. He said he had met an Arab man who was helping him to get on his feet in France.’
The family are devastated after the attack and claim they had no knowledge of Aouissaoui’s radicalisation.
His mother Gamra, 61, revealed: ‘Brahim did start praying and taking his religion more seriously a few months ago but he was not in contact with Salafists [Islamic extremists].
‘I thought becoming more interested in his religion would stop him drinking and taking drugs.’
His father Muhammad, 63, cannot believe that his gentle son carried out such an atrocity.
‘I just want the truth,’ he said.
Aouissaoui was identified by police to have arrived in Europe on a migrant boat last month, after being processed through the Italian Red Cross.
He beheaded a 60-year-old woman, slit the throat of sexton Vincent Loques, 55, and stabbed mother-of-three Simone Barreto Silva, 44, to death at Nice Notre-Dame Basilica on Thursday morning.
He repeatedly shouted ‘Allahu akbar’, meaning ‘God is greatest’ in Arabic, even after he was shot by police 14 times.
He was Tasered, detained and treated by paramedics before being taken to hospital, where he remains in a critical condition.
Six other people between the ages of 25 and 63 have also been arrested in connection with the attack.
France was hit by five separate attacks over the course of a few days amid religious tensions, with President Emmanuel Macron saying the country is ‘under attack’.
At around 11.15am on Thursday, a knifeman was shot dead by police in the Montfavet district of Avignon, in southeastern France.
The shouter also shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he threatened passers-by and police with a blade, according to reports.
At around a similar time, a man was arrested in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for attacking a guard with a ‘sharp tool’ outside the French embassy.
And a man was tasered by police and shot with rubber bullets in Paris on Friday after allegedly trying to attack officers with a knife.
Then a priest was left critically injured after he was gunned down on Saturday while locking up his residence in Lyon. Police have launched a manhunt to find the gunman.
The recent spate of attacks come after teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by an Islamist attacker in a Paris suburb two weeks ago.
It is not yet clear whether all the attacks were linked, which occurred ahead of the Catholic holy day of All Saints Day yesterday.
President Macron said soldiers would be posted at churches to ‘protect’ them, and raised the terror alert level to the maximum ’emergency’.
He told reporters in Nice: ‘If we are attacked, it is because of our values, our values of freedom and our desire not to yield to terror.
‘A deployment of soldiers [is] to be stepped up on French territory, stepping up protection of places of worship including churches.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/02/nice-terror-suspect-21-sent-selfie-to-family-just-hours-before-killings-13518906/