NICE // France's shock at the murder of an elderly Catholic priest during a morning mass at his church has been deepened by revelations that at least one of two attackers was a known extremist.
As the French president Francois Hollande met leaders of the country's main religions to present a solid front against hatred and violence, it emerged that Adel Kermiche, 19, was arrested not once but twice last year while trying to join ISIL in Syria.
French media said yesterday that investigators were close to identifying the second attacker. Several reports referred to another 19-year-old man, named as Abdel or Abdelkrime Malik P, whose family home was in the French Alps.
His identity card was found at Kermiche's home although there were contradicting accounts of whether he, too, was listed as a suspected extremist.
After the multi-faith meeting with Mr Hollande, France's leading Muslim figure Dalil Boubakeur, rector of Paris's Grand Mosque, called for greater protection of places of worship because even "the most humble place of worship" was at risk. He expressed "profound sorrow" on behalf of French Muslims at the "blasphemous sacrilege" of Tuesday's atrocity.
Kermiche was under a limited form of house arrest, granted at one level of the court system and confirmed by another against the pleadings of prosecutors who wanted to see him put in prison.
Following his second foiled attempt to reach Syria in May last year, his mother, a teacher, said the extremist attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine four months before had acted as a "detonator". In less than three months she said her son had been radicalised from a previously "happy, nice boy who loved music and going out with girls".
Having broken the terms of bail conditions imposed after his first attempt to reach Syria in March last year, Kermiche was detained pending trial for "criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise", which given his pattern of reoffending could have led to a substantial custodial sentence.
But in March this year, he was freed by an antiterrorism judge, apparently convinced by his claims to have recognised the error of his ways and become determined to make something of his life. Despite an appeal by prosecutors who believed Kermiche still posed a risk, the decision was upheld by an appeal court.
On Tuesday, the prosectors' fears were realised when Kermiche and his accomplice burst into the church of Sainte-Therese, in the western French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, and killed the priest, Father Jacques Hamel.
Under the terms of his limited house arrest, Kermiche had been required to surrender his passport and identity card, live with his parents and wear an electronic tag.
He was allowed to switch off the tag each weekday morning, however, as well as on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, but had to report regularly to police. Tuesday's took place at about 9.30am local time and, since Kermiche lived just a 25-minute walk from the church, he had ample time to carry out the killing within his daily hours free of electronic surveillance.
Father Jacques, 85, had his throat slit after being ordered by the young attackers to kneel, and a parishioner was critically wounded. The two attackers then filmed themselves appearing to preach in Arabic, though it is unclear how well either of them spoke the language.
Sister Danielle, one of two nuns to escape the attack, said Father Jacques was a "faithful priest who loved people regardless of faith".
But France was left with the feeling that, regardless of how realistic it is to expect such crimes to be preventable, this was yet another instance of a home-grown French extremist committing a deadly act on behalf of ISIL or similar groups, despite being known to the security services. ISIL quickly admitted responsibility for Tuesday's murder.
Since Mohamed Merah killed seven people, including three children, in March 2012, while supposedly also under surveillance, no extremist who had not previously been known to the authorities had carried out an attack in France until the Bastille night massacre of July 14 in Nice. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who killed 84 people when he drove a 19 tonne lorry into crowds on the Promenade des Anglais, had a criminal record but for brushes with the law unconnected to terrorism.
Kermiche's case once again demonstrates the futility of regarding an individual's inclusion in France's famous "Fiche S" files, which list those considered capable of being drawn into acts of terrorism, as any kind of assurance that he or she is monitored day and night.
After the November 13 attacks in Paris last year, when 130 people died, the French prime minister Manuel Valls revealed there were 10,500 names in the files.
Analysts, including French security chiefs past and present, have acknowledged that round-the-clock surveillance of so many people would be impossible without an unsustainable level of increased resources.
But even if that drawback to the system is widely accepted, French authorities are left with difficult questions on how a man who prosecutors regarded as dangerous managed to persuade judges he should not be in prison or under complete house arrest.
Even before the Nice attack, there were growing calls for a form of internment, or preventive detention of suspects, even where there is insufficient evidence to proceed to trial.
Such an approach would bring France into conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights. But a former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes to contest next year's French presidential elections said it was time to move forward from "legal niceties" and adopt new measures without delay.
Among friends, neighbours and acquaintances quoted by French media, there have been many expressions of disbelief and ignorance of Kermiche's extremist views. But some knew of his radicalisation and one friend even recalled talk - which he had dismissed - of planning to attack a church.
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