2nd Terrorist Arrested over French Priest's Murder
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Police in southwest France arrested a 21-year-old man in connection with the killing of a priest in a Normandy church last month, judicial sources said Wednesday.
The man arrested Monday in the Toulouse area is the second to be held in connection with the murder of 85-year-old Jacques Hamel, whose throat was slit in front of worshipers while he was celebrating mass in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray on July 26, AFP reported.
A police source said he had been in contact with the cleric's killers, Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, who had pledged allegiance to Daesh (also known as ISIL and ISIS).
The pair, both aged 19, were shot dead by police after a hostage drama in which a worshiper was seriously wounded.
The grisly attack – the first committed in the name of Daesh against a church in the West –came less than two weeks after a terrorist plowed a 19-ton truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the Riviera city of Nice, killing 85 people and wounding more than 300.