Syria refugee 1 of 3 held in French church attack

Unfortunately, one congregation member is now hospitalized with serious injuries after the attackers slashed the man in four places, his wife revealed to the media on Wednesday. Another nun at the Mass slipped away and raised the alarm.

The Islamic State group claimed the attack. Kermiche was from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

However during a raid on the home of the attacker, 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, police found an identity card belonging to one Abdel Malik P, also 19. During the attack, the two men used knives and fake explosives, and prosecutor Francois Molins said that one of them even wore a phony suicide belt that was covered in tin foil.

However, Petitjean never went to Syria but instead returned nearly immediately to France, the security official said, and was back inside the country long before his name was added June 29 to France’s watch list.

He was released under judicial supervision, but in May fled to Turkey where he was again arrested and returned to France. During that time, the tracking device was deactivated and he was permitted to go anywhere in the region as long as he returned home by the appointed hour, according to a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. In addition, police detained a 16-year-old whom Molins said was the younger brother of a young man who travelled to the Syria-Iraq zone of the Islamic State group carrying Kermiche’s ID.

However, the sources said that France’s anti-terrorism police unit UCLAT sent out a note four days before the attack – saying it had received “reliable” information about a person “about to carry out an attack on national territory”. “The date, the target and the modus operandi of these actions are for the moment unknown”.

It was not immediately clear how the two men knew each other or when Petitjean traveled from eastern France to Normandy, in the west.

A neighbour of Kermiche in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, who gave his name only as Redwan, said he had known who was responsible as soon as he heard about the attack. The priest was to be buried Tuesday at the Cathedral of Rouen.

One of the hostages, the 86-year-old wife of the man critically injured, said Wednesday the attackers had handed her husband identified only as Guy a cellphone and demanded that he take photos or video of the priest after he was slain. It came a day after another film was circulated in which Petitjean and Kermiche, who was electronically tagged since last March, were seen swearing allegiance to the terror group. An umbrella organization for Muslims, the French Council for the Muslim Faith, asked Muslims to visit churches Sunday “to express anew solidarity and compassion”.

The killing came just two weeks after the Bastille Day attack and is the latest of more than a dozen attacks attributed to Islamic extremists in France over the past two years.

After the meeting, Paris Archbishop Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois urged Catholics not to “enter the game” of IS that “wants to set children of the same family in opposition to each other”.

A gathering this weekend to honor victims of the Nice attack was canceled Thursday after authorities said law enforcement was too busy protecting against threats.