PARIS: Authorities in Nice are protesting against a request from French anti-terror police to delete surveillance camera images of last week’s deadly truck attack, amid growing questions over the scale of the police presence at the time.

The city received a letter this week from the SDAT anti-terrorism agency, saying images of the July 14 attack should be destroyed. An official with the national police said the request was motivated by concern that the images could leak and be used for jihadi propaganda.

The official was not authorised to be publicly named. A lawyer for the city submitted a protest letter on Friday saying Nice officials would not comply for legal, administrative and technical reasons. But the lawyer also notes that the images are scheduled to be automatically deleted anyway on Sunday, according to Nice City Hall practice of deleting CCTV images after 10 days.

Investigators will keep copies of the images. The dispute comes as the government faces growing criticism over security measures the night of the attack, and the cameras could show where and how police were deployed.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2016