Priest Jacques Amel was officiating at St. Etienne-di-Rouvre in Normandy when in July 2016 two men entered the church. They forced the 85-year-old to kneel and cut his neck. Both were later killed by police bullets.
Four men are on trial today for the murder of an elderly priest who was attacked with a knife inside the church where he was operating – a jihadist attack that had shocked France.
The four defendants have been charged with complicity in the attack and participation in a “criminal terrorist organization”.
Prosecutors have said the men – all born in France – were in contact with the perpetrators of the murder.
Three of them sat today in the dock of the accused in the historic Courthouse of the French capital.
Before the start of the hearing, their lawyers declared that their clients were innocent, Radio Franceinfo radio station reported.
The fourth defendant, Rashid Qasim, who prosecutors claim had contacted the perpetrators from Syria and encouraged them to kill him. priestis judged in absentia.
The U.S. military says a car bomb had exploded at an Iraqi police recruiting center at Kisak, near the Iraqi capital, Mosul, in February 2017.
The first jihadist attack inside a church in Western Europe
Amel’s assassination was the first jihadist attack on a church in Western Europe and was committed just 12 days after the attack on a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, which was launched by a Tunisian who had declared allegiance to the Islamic State and claimed the lives of 84 people.
Pope Francis called the priest a martyr.
More than 230 people were killed in a series of Islamist attacks, from 2015 to 2017, in France, as broadcast by international agencies and the Athens News Agency.
The hearing will take at least a month.
Source: News Beast
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