Christians and Muslims to mourn murdered French priest
PARIS July30 (AFP)- Muslim and Christian groups will hold vigils today for a French priest murdered by jihadists in his church, as police charged a man in connection with the brutal attack that has plunged the nation into mourning again.
Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit on the altar by IS-inspired attackers who stormed his church in a Normandy town during mass Tuesday.
A regional Muslim council has planned a “brotherhood march” in Lyon, while a church in Bordeaux said it would hold a non-denomination vigil for 85-year- old priest.
Prayers were also planned at the Eglise Saint-Etienne where the killing took place, the latest in a nation shaken by three major extremist attacks in the last 18 months.
French authorities on Friday filed the first charges tied to the attack against a 19-year-old man accused of “criminal conspiracy with terrorists” over a mobile phone video that police discovered at his home, a judicial source said.
Three days before the church attack authorities discovered the video that showed one of the assail- ants, Abdel Malik Petitjean, pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and speaking of “a violent action”. Petitjean and his accomplice Adel Kermiche, both 19, were both killed by police in the attack.
Three other people are also being held by authorities for questioning.
The charges came as Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he would weigh a temporary ban on foreign financing of mosques, urging a “new model” for relations with Islam after a spate of jihadist attacks.
In an interview with Le Monde newspaper, Valls said he was “open to the idea that -- for a period yet to be determined -- there should be no financing from abroad for the construction of mosques”.