Police: Second Normandy church attacker also known as potential militant

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PARIS – The French prosecutor’s office on Thursday named the second attacker in the murder of a priest at a Normandy church as Abdel Malik Nabil Petitjean, a 19-year-old native of the eastern French region of Vosges.

Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, also 19, stormed into a quiet church in the Rouen suburb of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray on Tuesday and slit the throat of Jacques Hamel, a beloved 85-year-old priest in the middle of a morning Mass service. They were later shot dead by police.

The two also reportedly wounded an elderly man, whom authorities say is no longer in life-threatening condition.

Like Kermiche, who had come to anti-terror investigators’ attention for twice seeking entry into Syria in 2015, Petitjean was also known to French authorities since June 29 as a potential Islamist militant, police sources told the Reuters news agency Thursday morning. Like Kermiche, he had also attempted to enter Syria from Turkey.

Petitjean was eventually identified through DNA analysis.

On Wednesday, the two were shown in video released by the Islamic State group, pledging their allegiance to the self-proclaimed caliphate.

In Turkey, a senior official said that Kermiche, using the alias Kevin Kermiche, was stopped by airport authorities in Istanbul and sent back to Geneva on May 14, 2015. France was immediately informed about Kermiche’s deportation, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under government protocol.

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