A forensic expert removes a body from the Promenade des Anglais along the seafront in Nice | Boris Horvat/AFP via Getty Images Nice attacker was ‘a salsa-dancing bodybuilder,’ not a jihadi ‘He would drink alcohol and not talk about religion,’ says a family friend and former neighbor.

The 31-year-old man who allegedly carried out a deadly truck attack in Nice on Bastille Day was a young Muslim who showed no apparent signs of religious radicalization, according to people who knew him.

Rather, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel loved to dance salsa and lift weights.

French judicial authorities opened a terrorism investigation Friday into Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the Tunisian truck driver accused of killing 84 people who had gathered for the July 14 celebrations on the famed Promenade des Anglais along the Nice waterfront.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls later deemed the Nice attacker "a terrorist, likely linked to radical Islam in one way or another."

But the picture of Lahouaiej Bouhlel emerging from his friends, local imams and neighbors is that of a lonely and tormented father of three who left Tunisia in 2009, recently divorced from his wife, and struggling to make ends meet.

“He would drink alcohol and not talk about religion,” said Mohamed Gacem, a 37-year-old family friend and construction painter who was Lahouaiej Bouhlel's neighbor in Tunisia. “But he was sometimes aggressive in discussions.”

Gacem said the two had recently had a “heated discussion” about Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar. “He told me that he had tried to observe Ramadan but didn’t want to continue because he had recently fallen asleep while driving and caused a car accident,” Gacem said.

Taoufik Bouhlel, who heads the Muslim “Association culturelle de Nice,” a few steps away from the home of Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s wife on Boulevard Henri Sappia, said he had never met him nor seen him at Friday prayers. “He never came to the praying room,” Bouhlel said. “His act has nothing to do with religion.”

Nice is a southern city with a large community of Muslims, many of whom live in the northern neighborhood commonly called “Nice Nord.” Bouhlel said about 60,000 Muslim people lived in this area.

François Molins, the Paris prosecutor, told reporters Friday that Lahouaiej Bouhlel was known to French police for violence, theft and degradation. But he wasn’t known by intelligence services for links to terrorist groups. Police are now investigating how Lahouaiej Bouhlel got the weapon and the truck to commit the crime.

A senior security official told POLITICO Friday that French police searched Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s apartment in the eastern part of Nice and seized a computer. They also searched his wife’s home in the northern part of the city. A second senior security source said that investigators found the attacker had posted a "Hezbollah flag" on his Facebook page days before the attacks.

According to a statement issued by France's justice ministry, Lahouaiej Bouhlel was sentenced on March 24 to six months of suspended jail time for his involvement in a fight. He was placed under judicial supervision, and required to show up once a week at a police station. “The accused respected the judicial control," the statement said.

Gacem described Lahouaiej Bouhlel as a tall and robust man, who wore flowery shorts and tank tops “because he liked to show off his muscles."

“I never saw him wearing a jellabah,” Gacem added. He went regularly to “Fitlane,” a nearby fitness club, and to salsa dance clubs.

A spokesperson for Fitlane said the company had checked its database and Lahouaiej Bouhlel's name did not come up.

Gacem and Walid Hamou, 30, a friend who grew up near where Lahouaiej Bouhlel's ex-wife currently lives, said the alleged suspect found relief in a regular practice of bodybuilding, and salsa dancing.

After his divorce, friends said Lahouaiej Bouhlel settled in another poor neighborhood of Nice and struggled to make a living and pay for his children. “He told me recently that his bank had refused to grant him the €4,000 loan he had requested,” Gacem said. “He said he couldn’t pay for his own rent, as well as for his ex-wife’s alimony.”

French police officials and experts compare Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s use of a truck to kill people with two other cases involving two men with no previous links to terrorism. In 2014, an Islamic State spokesman said such modus operandi would be encouraged.

In December 2014, a man drove his car into groups of people in the eastern French city of Dijon, injuring 11. According to media accounts, the man was reported shouting "Allahu Akbar" or "God is greatest." The driver was known to the police for common crimes dating back to the 1990s, according to French interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.

In January 2016, another 29-year-old man, who was not known to intelligence services, drove his car at troops protecting a mosque in Valence in southern France, injuring a soldier and a Muslim man. The driver was seriously wounded when the soldiers shot him.

This article has been updated with a response from Fitlane.

Authors: