Bouhlel, 31, a kickboxer and gym fanatic, is believed to have been taking strong medication to control mood swings while also being addicted to strong cannabis
This is the hulking frame of the Bastille Day monster Mohamed Bouhlel , pictured on a family holiday just months before he murdered 84 people.
A chilling picture began to emerge last night of an angel-faced teenager who turned into the homicidal maniac responsible for the seafront massacre in Nice .
Bouhlel, 31, a kickboxer and gym fanatic, is believed to have been taking strong medication to control mood swings which had ruined his marriage.
He is also said to be have been addicted to strong cannabis which made his bouts of mental illness more alarming.
Our exclusive picture of Bouhlel as a high-school graduate aged around 17 was taken when friends say he was smoking strong weed and bragging of being a success with girls.
The main picture displays the Tunisian’s gym-hardened physique as he strolled along a beach in France last December.
Days before Thursday night’s truck rampage, Isis-inspired Bouhlel sent £84,000 to his relatives in Tunisia, North Africa.
His brother Jaber, who had not seen him for several years, said the money had come as a complete surprise.
Jaber, 19, said: “It was fortune. He sent the money illegally.
“He gave cash to people he knew who were returning to our village and asked them to give it to the family.”
Bouhlel’s brother-in-law, Chokri Amimi 35, said: “Mohamed was mentally sick from childhood. From 12 years old he had problems and he suffered shock attacks.
“He was one of seven brothers and three sisters, but he was always the ill one.
“He did not help himself. He smoked lots of drugs, like strong weed, and he drank everything that was going despite knowing he was mentally sick.
“He may have said he was popular with the girls but only God knows if that is true.
“Then he moved to France in about 2005 and married his aunt’s daughter, who lived in Nice.
“But the family are always in conflict, they are always fighting. He was always doing drugs and it did not help the fits.
“His wife knew he was ill, but she never told the police about it. She may have to answer questions about it now.”
Estranged wife Hajer Khalfallah was arrested and placed under formal criminal investigation earlier on Friday.
Their three children, aged five, three and 18 months, are being held under police protection while Hajer is questioned about what she knew of her husband’s deadly plans.
Details of Bouhlel’s final hours began to emerge as his family in North Africa came to terms with the news.
Speaking at the family home in Msaken, Tunisia, Jaber said: “The last time I spoke to my brother was just two days ago.
“I gave him a call and we had a normal conversation.
“He sent me a selfie at 4pm on Thursday and he told me he was happy and that everything in his life was normal.
“When we heard about what was happening in Nice we started to try and send him messages asking if he was all right. We heard nothing back.
“His family here were sending him messages until two in the morning but there was no reply.”
Today Isis claimed responsibility for the outrage. Anti-terror police arrested four men amid fears the massacre was coordinated. Bouhlel’s carnage is just the latest in a string of sickening attacks carried out by young Tunisian men involved in Islamist terror cells.
Msaken is 12 miles from the once-popular coastal resort of Sousse, where Isis gunman Seifeddine Rezgui massacred 38 mainly British holidaymakers last summer.
Three months earlier 21 European tourists were massacred inside the capital Tunis’s museum.
But tonight Bouhlel’s father Mohamed Mondher insisted his son was mentally ill and not a radicalised soldier linked to the terror group.
On the doorstep of his home in the impoverished Hay Ennour area of Msaken, 90 miles from the capital Tunis, he said: “From 2002 to 2004 he had problems that led to a nervous breakdown.
“He’d get angry and shout and broke everything in front of him. He was violent and very ill.
“We took him to the doctor and he was put on drugs. Whenever there was a crisis we took him back again.
“He was always alone, always silent, refusing to talk. Even in the street he wouldn’t greet people.”
Mr Mondher insisted his son had “no connection with religion. He didn’t fast and keep Ramadan. He drank. He even took drugs.
“We’re all in a state of shock at what’s happened.”
Bouhlel was known to police for petty crime, including theft and domestic violence.
He was not under surveillance as a terrorist threat.
He was never on a radical watch list but Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said he could have been inspired by calls from extremist groups to carry out terrorist act.
Despite having a population of only ten million, Tunisia has been the leading supplier of Islamic State foot-soldiers.
Four suspects quizzed
Police were questioning four men tonight to discover if they were part of an Islamic State cell with truck killer Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel .
Two brothers were arrested after being held at gunpoint as they parked a car at flats near Nice train station.
A student, Ramzie Arefa , 22, was taken by police who stormed his mother’s flat, while a fourth suspect arrested on Friday alongside the killer’s ex-wife Hajer Khalfallah was still being quizzed.
A police source said: “All are being viewed as possible accomplices.”
The four were hunted down after police searched Bouhlel’s mobile phone – found in the cab of his lorry.
IS claimed it was behind Thursday’s massacre but French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve cast doubt on the claim, saying if Bouhlel was a terrorist, he must have been radicalised “very quickly”.
It is understood he only started going to a mosque in April.
Tunisia's role in gun trade across the Mediterranean
Tunisia has become a key route for arms traders smuggling semi-automatic weapons and ammunition across the Mediterranean.
Shipments of weapons such as AK-47s, which can be bought for as little as £15 in Europe, are spirited into ports towns such as Marseille which has become known as France’s Kalashnikov capital.
Porous border controls are blamed for the easy transport of weapons, and Islamic State fighters returning from Syria who are experts in hiding guns.
In the wake of last October’s Paris atrocities, in which 130 were slaughtered, the home of an IS suspect was raided in Lyon, yielding a deadly array of weapons including a land-to-air rocket launcher.