French police detained a Syrian asylum seeker in connection with the Normandy church attack, sources said on Friday, as security services widened their investigation into a priest’s killing by two assailants.
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An identity card bearing the name Abdel Malik P, a 19-year-old from the southeastern town of Savoie, was found during a search of Kermiche’s parents’ house on Tuesday.
Residents of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray were struggling to come to terms with the bloodshed in their small town, so far from France’s tourist hubs. Hours after the attack, the Islamic State extremist militia claimed that it had been carried out by two of its “soldiers”.
He was under home detention and wore an electronic tag that let him go outside only in the mornings.
“We were saying that is not good and he was replying that France is the land of unbelievers”, Redwan said.
French authorities placed Petitjean on a terrorist watch list in June after he attempted to travel from Turkey to Syria.
DNA identification of the second attacker is still in progress, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Wednesday, according to French media. The government has said there are about 10,500 people with such so-called “S files” related to potential jihadi activities in France.
“He fell down looking upwards, toward us”, said Jeanine, the ex-hostage, who said they forced her husband to then take pictures or video.
“Luckily he was caught in time twice”, she told the Tribunal de Geneve newspaper. I gave birth to him.
He was not the first person to leave this corner of Normandy headed for Syria, nor the most notorious.
By the time Kermiche’s obsession with joining ISIS began, Hauchard had already been in Syria for almost 18 months, according to police. The official spoke anonymously because not authorized to speak publicly on the investigation.
The killing shocked a nation already reeling from a spate of deadly terrorist attacks.
“I knew it was him”.
An 18-year-old neighbour said he had seen Kermiche just three days earlier in nearby Rouen wearing a long Islamic robe.
‘He was considered to be a hard-working, friendly young man who did not pose any danger to passengers or others using the airport.
“They did not succeed in getting their son to return to a, how to say it, a normal behavior”, she added.
Pope Francis, visiting Krakow, Poland, for World Youth Day celebrations, said of the slaying of the priest, “It’s war, we don’t have to be afraid to say this”.
“When I speak of war I speak of wars over interests, money, resources, not religion”. Religions don’t want war.
President Francois Hollande, members of his government and opposition rivals gathered together on Wednesday at the symbolic Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris for a mass attended by Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders to pay tribute to the murdered priest.
The archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, called on Catholics to “overcome hatred that comes in their heart” and not to allow the Islamic State group “to set children of the same family upon each other”. He did not elaborate.
More horrifying details have emerged about an attack on a French village church even as the country’s main religious leaders sent a message of unity and solidarity after meeting with President Francois Hollande in Paris.
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Police said they discovered a copy of the Syrian’s passport at Kermiche’s family home.
