Formal identification of the second perpetrator of Tuesday’s attack, in the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray close to Rouen, is still in progress today (Wednesday) but “one scent is particularly favoured” by the investigators.
Advertisement
“He said to us ‘Yes, I tried (to go to Syria).’ Then we tried to bring him to his senses, every time we did it and every time he was bringing in a verse from the Quran, he was inventing things”.
Before she fled, she witnessed the perpetrators gather around the church altar and perform some sort of religious oration in Arabic before forcing Hamel to his knees and placing a knife to his neck, she told the station.
France has been under a state of emergency since the Paris terror attacks in November previous year, and French authorities have struggled to monitor thousands of domestic Islamic radicals on their radar.
Anti-terror chiefs have been appointed to take charge of the investigation.
A Sister Danielle, who was one of two nuns inside the church during the incident yesterday, said it was “a horror”. “He tried to struggle, he tried”, she told RMC radio.
Hollande said the attack was a “cowardly assassination” carried out “by two terrorists in the name of Daesh” – another name for ISIS.
The known ISIS terrorist who murdered a Catholic priest in northern France had told judges “I am not an extremist” before being freed from prison to kill, it emerged today.
Authorities were also grappling with the possibility of another breakdown in France’s security apparatus as they investigated Kermiche’s involvement in this latest attack.
Opposition Republican leader Nicolas Sarkozy accused Mr Hollande of “trembling” in the face of the jihadist threat.
After the talks, Paris Archbishop Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois urged Catholics not to “enter the game” of IS that “wants to set children of the same family in opposition to each other”.
The killing came 12 days after the attack in Nice in which 84 people died. In April of a year ago, French police detained Sid Ahmed Ghlam, an Algerian suspected of receiving instructions from Islamic State to attack a church.
Mr Sarkozy said: ‘Everything that should have been done the past 18 months was not done.
The French government has strengthened security services since last year’s attacks in January and November; it has also handed police special powers to conduct raids and detain suspects in their homes under a state of emergency.
After the Bastille Day attack in Nice, the government chose to prolong the state of emergency and maintain the number of soldiers dedicated to a homeland security mission at 10,000.
Advertisement
At a press conference in Downing Street, Prime Minister Theresa May offered her condolences to the French people, saying: “Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected”.
