French ‘covered up’ failure to halt terror killing

FRENCH spies doctored files to cover up failings that resulted in jihadists murdering a priest in his church, according to French reports.

On July 26 2016, Islamists burst into a church in Saint-etienne-du-rouvray in Normandy and slit the throat of Jacques Hamel, 85. Police shot the pair dead.

According to a report published by Mediapart, a news website, five days previously, an agent at the intelligence unit of the Paris Police Prefecture had come across an encrypted channel containing a message boasting: “I haven’t been uncovered”. It was from one of the terrorists. In other messages he urged attacks on churches and said that with a knife one could “cut off two or three heads” and create “carnage”.

The agent informed his superiors and advised them to inform the General Direction of Interior Security, the French equivalent of MI5. However, his warnings went unanswered.

Officers cited by Mediapart said that after the murder, the agent was asked to postdate his notes and erase his computer’s browser history.