Priest’s killer ‘wanted to settle down’
Anger has mounted over the murder of a French priest after it emerged that one of the killers had duped a judge into believing he had abandoned radical Islam, and that the second jihadist was also a known terrorism suspect.
Isis released a video yesterday of the two killers pledging allegiance to the group.
French President Francois Hollande has come under further pressure to toughen France’s antiterrorism measures in response to the death of Father Jacques Hamel, 85, who was forced to kneel at the altar of his church in SaintEtienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, before the two jihadists cut his throat.
The latest act of Islamist barbarity provoked fresh revulsion in a country still reeling from the Bastille Day attack in Nice in which 84 people died, and the November shootings which left 130 dead in Paris.
An 87-year-old parishioner, one of only five worshippers who was in the church for morning mass at the time of the attack, is being treated in hospital for stab wounds. His 86-year-old wife, who was also present, said he had been forced to film the priest’s body on a mobile phone belonging to the killers.
She said her husband, who was marking his 87th birthday on the day of the attack, was stabbed four times in the neck, arm and back, and pretended to be dead to avoid further injury.
One of the terrorists was named as Adel Kermiche, 19, who was released from custody in March despite having made two attempts to join Isis in Syria the previous year.
He told a judge that he wanted to settle down and get a job. ‘‘I am a Muslim based on the values of mercy and goodwill. I am not an extremist,’’ he said at the time. ‘‘I want to take up my life again, see my friends and get married.’’
Kermiche’s parents said they thought he should remain prison, but the judge ordered his release on the grounds that he had been suicidal and had seen the error of his ways.
Youths in Saint-Etienne-duRouvray, where Kermiche lived with his parents, said he had often talked about his determination to commit an act of terror, citing churches as a target.
He was one of 13 convicted or suspected Islamists given an electronic tag, but the device was turned off between 8.30am and 12.30pm on weekdays to allow him to go out of the house. The church attack occurred at 9.25am.
Court documents leaked to the French press show that Kermiche had a troubled past, spending time in hospital with psychiatric problems as a child.
French media said police believed the second killer to be Abdel Malik Petitjean, 19, from Aix-les-Bains in the Savoy region, eastern France. He, too, was reported to have been identified as a potential terrorist by intelligence services after trying to reach Syria.
Hollande attended a ceremony at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in memory of Hamel yesterday. John W Hinckley Jr, who spent more than 35 years in a psychiatric hospital following his attempt to assassinate United States President Ronald Reagan in 1981, will be released into his mother’s care as early as next month under a federal court order issued yesterday.
US District Judge Paul L Friedman of Washington said that Hinckley, 61, no longer posed a danger to himself or others. Experts had found that his major depression and psychotic disorder were ‘‘in full and sustained remission and have been for more than 20 years’’, and that he was ‘‘clinically ready’’ to leave the hospital. He could be freed as soon as August 5.
‘‘I don’t like flipping around the TV, I want to do things,’’ a court document quoted Hinckley saying. He also has said he wants to ‘‘fit in’’ and be ‘‘a good citizen’’.
If he adheres to strict guidelines regarding his activities, Hinckley could be fully removed from court control in as little as a year.
Hinckley, who shot Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton hotel on March 30, 1981, was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 1982 trial and ordered confined for treatment at St Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington.
His release is subject to strict guidelines. He must live at his mother’s home in Williamsburg, Virginia, and is restricted to an 80-kilometre radius. He is barred from accessing social media, and must undergo treatment at St Elizabeth’s at least once a month.
The court order says Hinckley ‘‘shall have no contact whatsoever’’ with specific individuals, including actress Jodie Foster.
In a letter to Foster written on the eve of the assassination attempt, Hinckley displayed an obsession with her and emphasised that his act was an attempt to impress her.