National Post (National Edition)

ISIL terrorists slit priest’s throat in church

Two attackers in France murder 85-year-old

- ALEX TURNBULL

SAINT- ETIENNE-D UR O UV RAY, FRANCE• Two attackers slit the throat of an 85-year-old priest celebratin­g mass in a French church, killing him and gravely injuring one of the few worshipper­s present before being shot to death by police. A nun who escaped said she saw the attackers take a video of themselves and “give a sermon in Arabic” around the altar.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibi­lity for the attack, the first inside a church in the West.

Police rescued three people — including a second nun — in the northweste­rn town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

One of the attackers has been identified as Adel Kermiche, a local youth whose parents flagged his radical behaviour to authoritie­s.

Family friend Jonathan Sacarabany said Kermiche grew up in a housing project in Saint-Etienne-duRouvray. He said Kermiche had a sister who is a doctor in the nearby city of Rouen, and a brother. Their mother is a professor. The family alerted authoritie­s to his radicalism to try to stop him from going to Syria, Sacarabany said. According to BFM television, Kermiche was turned back at the Turkish border and was then jailed by French authoritie­s.

An official said the man was under police supervisio­n and wore an electronic bracelet.

A statement published by the ISIL-affiliated Amaq news agency said the attack was carried out by “two soldiers of the Islamic State” who acted in response to calls to target nations in the U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremists in Iraq and Syria.

The statement echoed claims in other recent attacks in France and neighbouri­ng Germany.

Authoritie­s in Europe had previously concentrat­ed on suspected militants who returned from ISIL-held territory in Syria or Iraq. But many recent attacks appear to have been carried out by individual­s radicalize­d by ISIL propaganda and who pledged loyalty on their own.

“The investigat­ions are ongoing. There are still unknowns,” Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said. “There are dogs, explosive detectors and bomb disposal services” at the church outside the city of Rouen, the capital of France’s Normandy region.

A nun who was in the church said the Rev. Jacques Hamel was forced to the ground before his throat was slit. “They forced him to his knees. He wanted to defend himself. And that’s when the tragedy happened,” the nun, identified as Sister Danielle, told BFM.

She said the attackers made a recording of themselves. “They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic. It’s a horror,” she said.

Dominique Lebrun, the archbishop of Rouen, confirmed Hamel’s death. “I cry out to God, with all men of goodwill. And I invite all nonbelieve­rs to unite with this cry,” Lebrun wrote in a statement from Krakow, Poland. “The Catholic Church has no other arms besides prayer and fraternity between men.”

Hamel had been at the church for the past decade and was “always ready to help,” Rouen diocese official Philippe Maheut said.

“Sometimes he was running all around, and his desire was to spread a message for which he consecrate­d his life,” Maheut said. “And he certainly didn’t think that consecrati­ng his life would mean for him to die while celebratin­g a mass, which is a message of love.”

French President François Hollande, arriving on the scene, called it a “vile terrorist attack” and one more sign that France is at war with ISIL. “We must lead this war with all our means,” he said. Hollande also called the Pope on Tuesday and said, “when a priest is attacked, it is all of France that has been hurt.”

The town mayor, Hubert Wulfranc, in tears, denounced the “barbarism” and pleaded, “Let us together be the last to cry.”

Mohammed Karabila, head of the Regional Council of the Muslim Faith for Haute-Normandie, also was familiar with Kermiche but refused to refer to him by name. “The person who committed this odious act is known and he has been followed by the police for at least 11/2 years. He went to Turkey and security services were alerted after this,” he said. He had no informatio­n on the second attacker.

Pope Francis condemned the attack. Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said the Pope expressed his “pain and horror for this absurd violence, with the strongest condemnati­on for every form of hatred, and prayer for those affected.”

France is on high alert and under a state of emergency after an attack in the southern city of Nice on Bastille Day — July 14 — that killed 84 people that was claimed by ISIL, as well as a series of attacks last year that killed 147 others around Paris.

ISIL extremists have urged followers to attack French churches. ISIL has carried out systematic persecutio­n and abuses against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq, including Yazidi villages and Christian communitie­s that date back to the early centuries of the faiths.

 ?? PAROISSE SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY / AFP / GETTY IMAGES ?? French priest Jacques Hamel was killed during mass by two attackers, one of whom was under police supervisio­n and wore an electronic bracelet.
PAROISSE SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY / AFP / GETTY IMAGES French priest Jacques Hamel was killed during mass by two attackers, one of whom was under police supervisio­n and wore an electronic bracelet.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada