FOUR alleged accomplices in the murder of a French priest four years ago by teenage jihadists will face a trial by special jury, which in France is reserved for the most serious crimes, judiciary sources said today.

Jacques Hamel, an 85-year-old priest, had his throat slit at the foot of the altar in July 2016 in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

His two attackers were killed by police, and four others have been investigated for complicity in the killing.

In a document seen by AFP, investigating magistrates said the four would face a special jury court, meeting a demand by prosecutors last month.

The most serious charge, of complicity in a murder with terrorist intent, targets Rachid Kassim, the alleged instigator of the attack and presumed IS recruiter. 

He is believed to have been killed in Iraq in 2017, but will be tried in absentia as his death has never been confirmed. 

The three others face the lesser charge of membership in a criminal association with terrorist intent.

They include a 26-year-old man identified only as Yassine S., who admitted travelling with the two assailants prior to the attack “to learn about religion”, but left them the day before when they told him his approach to Islam was “lax”.

Prosecutors believe that he “encouraged and facilitated” the murder by the two attackers, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean, who were killed by police as they left the church in a suburb of the city of Rouen in northwestern France.

Two others, Jean-Philippe Steven Jean-Louis and Farid K., are also accused of being involved with the killers, but despite knowing of their “terrorist intent”, they may not have been aware of the duo’s exact plan.

The killing of Father Hamel occurred less than two weeks after the Bastille Day attack that claimed 86 lives when a Tunisian extremist rammed a truck into crowds on a popular promenade in the southern city of Nice.

The previous year had seen attacks in Paris on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a Jewish supermarket and on the Bataclan concert hall, as well as nearby cafes. – AFP, November 27, 2020.