Prosecutor Francois Molins revealed Wednesday that Kermiche had also been flagged as a radicalized Islamist and was under house arrest at the time of the attack.
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According to The Guardian, Adel Kermiche, who was 19 years old, was jailed twice on suspicion of traveling to Syria to join ISIS.
France has been under a state of emergency since the Paris terror attacks in November, and authorities have struggled to monitor thousands of domestic Islamic radicals on their radar.
Ankara deported one of the attackers in a church in Normandy and subsequently notified French authorities regarding the issue, a senior Turkish official told the Daily Sabah on Thursday.
“Brothers go out with a knife, whatever is needed, attack them, kill them en masse”, he says.
The Obs, a French publication, reported that Petitjean was a native of Saint-Die-des-Vosges (Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne).
Police identified the man as Abdel-Malik Nabil Petitjean from a town in eastern France on the border with Germany, a judicial source said.
Le Monde reports (in French) that Abdelmalik P strongly resembles a man already being sought by security services over fears he was about to carry out an attack.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, which released a video allegedly showing Kermiche and his accomplice clasping hands and pledging allegiance to the group. The killers, identified by police as Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik, shout “Allahu Akbar” as they run from the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, each holding a gun to the head of a nun as police snipers take aim.
The person in the photo appears to be one of two people who can be seen in a video posted on Wednesday by Islamic State’s news agency, they said.
In the southern city of Nice, 84 people were killed on July 14 by a man who drove a truck through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day while firing a handgun.
Isis claimed Tuesday’s attack on a church in France during which an 86-year-old priest’s throat was cut, saying it had been carried out by two of its “soldiers”.
Hamel was born in 1930 in Darnetal, a town near Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, and was ordained in 1958, according to information on the diocesan website.
“We tried to bring him to his senses”, his classmate Redwan said.
Those who knew Father Jacques Hamel described him as a dedicated and courageous man who had pledged to serve his parish until his last breath.
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Meanwhile, President Francois Hollande responded to remarks by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that “France is no longer France” as a result of the attacks.
