Sister Danielle alerted the police of the terrorist attack at the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy, and although her swift action could not save Father Hamel, she saved the lives of the other four members of the congregation.
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In addition to the priest, three nuns and two churchgoers were taken hostage.
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.
French police have named the second Normandy hostage-taker who appeared in an Islamic State video released after the murder of a Catholic priest as Abdel Malik Nabil Petitjean.
Opposition politicians have responded to the attacks with strong criticism of the government’s security record, unlike previous year, when they made a show of unity after gunmen and bombers killed 130 people at Paris entertainment venues in November and attacked a satirical newspaper in January.
One source said: “It was being acted upon, and everything was being done to track the terrorist down”.
The pair were shot dead by police after they entered a small Catholic church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen in northern France and slit the throat of the priest, Father Jacques Hamel, as he celebrated mass. An elderly man among the five people in the congregation was seriously wounded by knife slashes. One of the nuns escaped, but one of the parishioners, an 86-year-old man, was critically injured.
Petitjean, 19, born in Saint Die des Vosges in eastern France, was identified by DNA testing, the prosecutor’s office said Thursday morning.
The attackers at the church have been linked to the Islamic State terror group, and one of them was a 19-year-old who was already on the country’s radar.
The terror group claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday by releasing a video purporting to show the two teenagers pledging their allegiance to the jihadists. In it, Kermiche called himself Abu Jaleel al-Hanafi, and said Petit Jean was called Ibn Omar. “The date, the target and the modus operandi of these actions are for the moment unknown”.
Tuesday’s attack came less than two weeks after another suspected Islamist drove a truck into a Bastille Day crowd, killing 84 people.
“He said it wasn’t possible to live peacefully in France”. The attack occurred at 09.00, local time.
Police combing the area after the attack detained a 16 year-old whom prosecutor Francois Molins said was the younger brother of a young man who traveled to the Syria-Iraq zone of the Islamic State group – carrying the ID of Kermiche.
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The group has prioritized targeting France, which has been bombing the group’s bases in Iraq and Syria as part of a US-led worldwide coalition.
