The wounded hostage was treated at the scene, but had sustained serious injuries and was “between life and death”, he said.
Advertisement
Police rescued three other people inside the church, including a second nun said interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.
On Wednesday, French President Francois Hollande joined Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish leaders calling for unity following the church attack.
“We all face a terror threat”.
FRENCH spooks were handed the picture of a terrorist behind the execution of a Catholic priest just four days before the attack.
Police shot dead both attackers after negotiations failed and they ran toward officers shouting “Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)”, with one of them carrying a handgun.
One of Kermiche’s acquaintances, a youngster from the area of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, told Le Parisien newspaper that he was a “hyperactive child” who was excluded from school at the age of 12 due to “behaviour issues” – adding that he was a “time bomb”.
“They forced him to his knees”.
“The terrorists held me with a revolver at my neck”, she said, adding it was not clear to her now whether the weapon was real or fake.
The other jihadi has not been positively identified yet, although the UK Telegraph reports that police sources believe he is 19-year-old Abdel Malik P., the name gleaned from an ID card found during a search of Kermiche’s family home.
Francis Da Silva, 35, who manages the neighbourhood’s small supermarket, knew Kermiche since he was little.
Flowers, candles and messages are placed on the city hall entrance closed to the home of Father Jacques Hamel after he was killed during an attack in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, France.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said the man, identified as 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, also evaded police twice using relatives’ identities in attempts to reach Syria.
The attack is the latest in a recent string of high-profile, violent acts in Europe that began on July 14, when a radical Islamist drove a truck through throngs of Bastille Day revelers in Nice, France, killing 84.
He could be freed on probation with the “supervision and support” of his family in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, and wearing an electronic tag, the judge concluded.
“They recorded themselves. They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic”.
National Operational Police Lead for Protect and Prepare, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said: “There is no specific intelligence relating to attacks against the Christian community in the UK”.
The IS-linked Amaq news agency said the perpetrators were “soldiers of the Islamic State who carried out the attack in response to calls to target countries of the Crusader coalition”.
He was detained until March 18 when he was released under house arrest with an electronic monitoring tag.
One nun who was in the church said the priest was forced to the ground before his throat was slit. He talked about the Koran and Mecca and he told me “I’m going to attack a church”.
Advertisement
As well as being involved in the murder of American hostage Peter Kassig two years ago, he has been pictured slitting a Syrian enemy’s throat and is active on social media. “He was insane, he was talking to himself”, the source said.
