The attackers took hostages in the church and slit the throat of the 85-year-old priest, Rev. Jacques Hamel.
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Police revealed a Syrian asylum seeker was arrested near a refugee center where one of the Abdel-Malik Nabir Petitjean lived for four years until 2012.
Petit Jean was born in eastern France, in Saint Die des Vosges, in eastern France, the prosecutor’s office said.
Security services had in June opened a special file on Petitjean for becoming radicalised, a police source said separately.
It was the second major terrorist attack in France in less than two weeks after an Islamic State follower ploughed a lorry into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on 14 July in Nice, killing 84 people and injuring hundreds more.
They were killed after storming the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray where they forced Fr Jacques to kneel as they filmed his throat being cut.
Kermiche, who had also previously attempted to travel to Syria, was awaiting trial on terror charges and had been fitted with an electronic tag, despite calls from the prosecutor for him not to be released.
French media have reported sources close to the investigation as saying anti-terrorism police had been searching for a man in the days before the attack who “strongly resembled” Petitjean, after receiving a tip-off from a foreign intelligence agency about an imminent attack. Police had no name, only a photograph that appears to be of Petitjean, it added.
The Islamic State’s so-called news agency (Amaq) released on Wednesday a video that shows the two men pledging allegiance to the leader of the terrorist organization, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A judicial source said Kermiche received regular psycho- therapy and medication between the ages of six and 13, at which point he was sent to a school for pupils with behavioural problems.
A youth believed to be 16 was detained after the church attack and is still being held for questioning, the prosecutor’s office said.
“He was a troubled soul, he was all alone in his head”, said a neighbour of the Kermiche family in the leafy Rouen suburb where the 19-year-old was living under a court surveillance order.
Karabila said he was “stunned” by Hamel’s death, whom he described as a close friend.
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He went on to express “deep grief” on behalf of French Muslims, and called the attack a “blasphemous sacrilege which goes against all the teachings of our religion”. According to investigators, that period perfectly matched the time of the attack on the church and the killing of the priest.
