Her husband was in turn slashed in four places by the attackers and is now hospitalized with serious injuries.
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Kermiche and his accomplice took five hostages at the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray after bursting in during morning mass.
The government, already under pressure after the Nice attack, faced more questions over security weaknesses after it emerged one of the church attackers was known to anti-terror investigators. The exact timeline of the attack is still unclear.
The woman, identified only as Jeanine, told RMC radio on Wednesday that her husband played dead to stay alive.
One of the nuns managed to escape and call police, who tried to negotiate with the hostage-takers.
Hollande met top religious leaders as a violence-weary France mourned Tuesday’s attack, which came less than two weeks after a truck ploughed through a crowd enjoying a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people in the southern city of Nice.
He also said more of the country’s 10,000-strong Operation Sentinel anti-terror forces would be deployed to areas outside Paris following the Nice attack and the killing in Normandy.
Once suspects pass from French police supervision into the country’s judicial system, he said, they are relatively unsupervised, as the French Justice Ministry lacks the security resources of the Interior Ministry.
Religious leaders in France called for unity and solidarity after meeting with President Francois Hollande.
“We deeply desire that our places of worship are the subject of greater (security) focus, a sustained focus”, said Dalil Boubakeur. He did not elaborate. But the attackers keep outwitting the authorities with ever-new ways to shock the population.
Kermiche was put under house arrest with an electronic surveillance bracelet after a judge overruled prosecutors and agreed to free him, Molins said. Two nuns were held hostage along with the couple and the priest.
“I was afraid, yes, afraid especially when they entered”. Even in retirement Father Hamel sometimes held mass, as he was at the time of his death.
A nun, identified as Sister Danielle, described how Father Hamel was forced to kneel on the floor before his throat was cut.
“They started talking instead of Jacques. They shouted a bit”.
One of French church attackers has been identified as 19 year- old Adel Kermiche. Should it? Or should churches not resist evildoers and instead embrace martyrdom if it comes?
The jihadists produced what seemed to be a camera, more likely a camera phone and began videoing the events as they unfolded.
“They recorded it. They did something like a sermon around the altar in Arabic”, she added. As the assailant pulled out a knife to execute the priest, she made a run for safety.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Boston Archdiocese is in Poland at World Youth Day and said he has faith that local authorities will keep priests safe. “It makes me sick to see it”. She would later be taken to hospital where she was last night in critical condition. The extremists raced on to the courtyard of the church and died in a hail of bullets in a 15-second gun battle.
The Islamic State group has called the attackers “agents”.
But the deputy chief of France’s police union, Frederic Lagache, said: “It should not be possible for someone awaiting trial on charges of having links to terrorism to be released” on house arrest.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Kermiche twice tried to travel to Syria under a false identity. “Then I heard gunshots”, as the two assailants were killed.
“But he would quote the Koran to us, saying France is the land of the unbelievers, and we should go to Syria and fight”, he continued.
Candles were set in front of the town hall, and stunned townsfolk were calling for the kind of unity Hollande is seeking.
“It’s going to be hard to admit it … we are scared …”, said Mulas Arbanu. “Let us together be the last to cry”.
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The slain priest had been at the church for the past decade and “was always ready to help”, said Rouen diocese official Philippe Maheut.
