A 47-year-old man purportedly in contact with the suspected knifeman who killed three people at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday was detained for questioning, reported AFP citing a judicial source on Friday.

The man was detained late on Thursday following the attack in Nice’s Notre-Dame basilica by a 21-year-old Tunisian who arrived in France on October 9.

France’s anti-terror prosecutor Jean Francois Ricard identified the attacker as Brahim Aouissaoui, who carried a copy of the Koran. He was also carrying two phones and three knives when he entered the church at around 8.30 am. The attacker slit the throat of a 60-year-old woman and a 55-year-old man who worked at the church, another 44-year-old woman who tried to flee was stabbed and later succumbed to her injury.

Anti-terror prosecutor Ricard addressing a conference stated that the victims were targeted as they were present in the church and added, “people targeted for the sole reason that they were present in this church at that moment.”

President Emmanuel Macron labelled the attack an “Islamist terrorist attack,” and the goverment has placed its terror alert at maximum ahead of the Catholic holiday of All Saints Day on Macron. Macron will also conduct an emergency meeting over the attack with top ministers on Friday.