Teenager
who murdered French priest was 'like a ticking time bomb'
Local
resident says Adel Kermiche was troubled, while others say his
‘non-religious’ family did all they could to stop him being
redicalised
Elle Hunt and
Olivia Solon
Wednesday 27 July
2016 06.48 BST
One of the Islamic
State followers who murdered a priest in Normandy was a “ticking
time bomb” who displayed signs of “unusual” behaviour,
according to people in the town where he lived.
As France’s
president, François Hollande, prepared to meet religious leaders on
Wednesday to discuss responses to the attack, residents of the
Normandy town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray who knew 19-year-old Adel
Kermiche have spoken of how his family struggled to break him from
the “bubble” of Isis.
Kermiche and another
man forced 86-year-old Father Jacques Hamel to his knees then slit
his throat in a church in the town near Rouen during morning prayers
on Tuesday morning.
The men took five
hostages, one of whom was seriously injured after also having his
throat slit and left for dead.
The two attackers –
both described as Isis followers by Hollande – were shot dead by
police as they emerged from the church.
One has been
identified as Kermiche, who lived with his parents near the scene of
the attack and who had tried several times to travel to Syria.
“Everyone knows
that this kid was a ticking time bomb,” a resident of the area
identified as Foued, a pseudonym, told Le Parisien after the attack.
“He was too strange.”
Another neighbour
told Le Figaro that Kermiche showed visible signs of mental
disturbance. “He was crazy, he was talking to himself.”
Kermiche was stopped
by German police in March 2015 and accused of trying to travel to
Syria. He was sent back to France, where he was given conditional
parole awaiting trial.
Two months later, he
tried to enter Syria again, this time via Turkey. He was sent back to
France again and was detained in May 2015.
Despite prosecutors’
protests, he was released in March this year on the condition that he
live in his family home, go out only between 8.30am and 12.30pm, and
wear an electronic tag that allowed authorities to monitor his
movement.
The attack happened
at 9.43am local time.
Those close to
Kermiche and his family have told of how they “did everything in
their power” to reverse his radicalisation by Isis.
A man Le Figaro
identified as Bodri, a 23-year-old administration assistant, said he
had grown up with Kermiche, who had been “like a little brother”
to him.
They had worked
together at a children’s outdoor activity centre, he said. “He
was sweet with the kids. He behaved himself well.
“He was versatile.
He would run craft workshops and dance sessions. He always had ideas
for great games.”
Bodri said he had
never noticed “any signs of radicalisation”. Kermiche wore his
beard short, did not wear a djellaba (robe), and had never spoken to
Bodri of wanting to go to Syria.
Bodri had met
Kermiche in a car park the night before the attack, he told Le
Figaro. “He was dressed in jeans, he was smiling, he was happy,
normal.”
He said he did not
know Kermiche was wearing an electronic bracelet as per the court
orders at the time.
“I am shocked
because the attack is atrocious, but he was a good person with a
family with strong values.”
Those who knew the
Kermiche family stressed their normalcy. A woman identified as
Emmeline by Le Figaro, who lived next door, described them as
“ordinary”. “He was too,” she said.
According to a
neighbour quoted in Le Parisien’s report, one of his sisters was a
doctor, and his family was “not even religious”. “They really
did everything in their power, and it was not enough.”
Analysis Murder of
French priest opens a new frontier for Catholic church
Killing of Jacques
Hamel by men claiming to be Isis militants is a particular challenge
to Pope
A man given the
pseudonym Christian by Le Parisien said he too tried to help Kermiche
after he was freed from prison in March this year. He said they were
very close, though it was true that Kermiche “only spoke about
religion”.
“His sister, his
parents, me – we did everything to try and get him out. I tried to
talk to him. I told him to stop and that if he needed anyone to
confide in outside of his family, I was there. And he answered, ‘Yes,
OK, you are right’. But it was like he was inside a bubble.”
Le Parisien reported
that Kermiche had recently made a widespread appeal for money, and
treated those who refused – the majority – as unbelievers or
infidels.
His mother, a
professor, spoke to a Geneva newspaper in May 2015, shortly after he
had been apprehended by authorities attempting to enter Syria for the
second time in as many months.
The attack on the
Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris on January 2015 had acted as trigger,
the Tribune de Genève reported.
He became secretive,
started attending a mosque, and regularly lectured his non-practicing
relatives.
It took less than
three months for Kermiche to be radicalised.
“He said that
[Muslims] couldn’t exercise their religion peacefully in France,”
his mother said. “He spoke with words that didn’t belong to him.
He was under a spell, like a cult.”
She said authorities
refused her request to give him an electronic bracelet after he ran
away to Syria the first time, in March.
“Fortunately we
managed to catch him in time, twice. If he had made it to Syria, I
would have written off my son. I want to know who messed up my kid.
“We don’t know
where to turn for help.”
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