Terrorist organization Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the killing, releasing a video on Wednesday in which the two young men are seen clasping hands and pledging allegiance to the group. He was stopped and questioned by profilers on his arrival at Istanbul’s global airport on June 10 before he was allowed to continue on his way, a Turkish official said.
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A security source said that DNA had in fact confirmed Petitjean as the man who helped murder Father Jacques in the brutal attack in St Etienne de Rouvray on Tuesday.
According to the security official, Petitjean was spotted at a Turkish airport going to Syria on June 10.
Petitjean, whose face was disfigured when he was shot dead by police, had been harder to identify than his accomplice Adel Kermiche, also 19. He was forced to wear an electronic monitoring tag after he traveled overseas to try to fight in Syria, Molins said.
The tip-off came from an unnamed foreign intelligence agency and included a picture of 19-year-old Abdel Malik Petitjean in conjunction with an upcoming attack.
It was not immediately clear how the two men knew each other or when Petitjean travelled from eastern France to Normandy in the west. “He turned around” and returned to France on June 11. The two were both eventually gunned down by police and one of the hostages is still in serious condition.
The agency’s notice told police its information came from a trusted source.
With some conservative politicians warning of a “war of religions”, Hollande sought to head off divisions in a meeting with Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist leaders.
Amaq earlier reported that the attack had been executed by two of its “soldiers”, who had “responded to a summons to target coalition countries” involved in combatting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
According to a judicial source, at lease three people close to Petit Jean have been detained in relation to the investigation.
The attack was the latest to hit France, just weeks after a truck attack in the southern city of Nice claimed the lives of 84 people and caused President François Hollande to extend the country’s state of emergency for another six months.
Hollande’s predecessor and potential opponent in a presidential election next year, Nicolas Sarkozy, has said the government must take stronger steps to track known Islamist sympathisers.
“Brothers go out with a knife, whatever is needed, attack them, kill them en masse”, he says.
Some in the government have said that all suspected terrorists should be tagged with the electronic monitors, possibly jailed, even if they have not committed a crime.
Anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said Kermiche’s tag was deactivated for a few hours every morning, and the attack took place while it was not operating.
A brief show of political unity at a mass attended by different faiths in Paris Wednesday quickly dissolved as Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve faced fresh calls to resign.
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Since the Bastille Day killings in Nice, there has been a spate of attacks in Germany too, creating greater alarm in Western Europe already reeling from last year’s attacks in France and attacks this year in Brussels.
