Does this sound like someone with mental health problems?
One of the terrorists who cut the throat of a village priest in an attack claimed by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isil) had been turned back from Syria and was under police supervision, wearing an electronic tag.
French police and intelligence services were last night under intense scrutiny, after it emerged that one of the killers, named as Adel Kermiche, was known to have been radicalised and on a watch list as a potential threat to national security.
It was also last night reported that the church had been on a “hit list†found on a 24-year-old Algerian jihadi who had planned attacks last year in a Parisian suburb. Sid Ahmed Ghlam, a computer sciences student, was arrested by French police who are investigating whether he was directed to carry out attacks on churches by Isil.
The country’s security services have been accused of a series of failings after attacks by Islamist jihadists in the past 18 months.
Kermiche, 19, began making contact with radicals on the internet after the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks in January 2015 and came to authorities’ attention when he tried to help a teenager from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray join Isil.
He also twice attempted to go to Syria himself, but was arrested once in Munich and later sent back from Turkey to Geneva, where he was charged with “criminal association in connection with terrorismâ€.
He was returned to France and held in custody for 10 months. In March this year, he was released and tagged, after the public prosecutor appealed unsuccessfully against his release.
A French security source said Kermiche was known to be in contact with Maxime Hauchard, a French jihadist who came from the region and was identified as an Isil executioner.
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