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Introduction — July 28, 2016

A French policeman cordons off the area around the body of one of the two knifemen. Click to enlarge

A French policeman cordons off the area around the body of one of the two knifemen. Click to enlarge

We know that Adel Kermiche, the alleged priest killer, was mentally unstable and psychologically vulnerable. So it’s worth noting that his mother described how her son had seemed “bewitched” and “spoke with words that were not his own” prior to the attack, as if “he was under a spell“.
To the layperson this sounds like the behaviour of someone who had been psychologically programmed and conditioned. Had Kermiche effectively been brainwashed as some of those who knew him have suggested?
We know these things happen. The evidence is compelling and a matter of historical record. Yet as always the corporate media fails to take it fully into account when reporting current events.
Did it play a role in regard to Jacques Hamel, the French priest reportedly murdered by Kermiche and his accomplice?
Equally as pressing is the question as to why French police didn’t issue a warning to the public, even though they had been alerted by the intelligence services that a terror attack was imminent?
Four days before the outrage a colour photo of Abdelmalik Petitjean, Kermiche’s accomplice, was distributed to French police with the warning: ‘He’s already in France, and is preparing to act alone, or with others’.
Nonetheless the two jihadists still managed to evade French police and accomplish their bloody deed.
So yet again another terror attack has taken place, largely because of mistakes, procedural lapses and oversights on the part of the authorities. Or so we are led to believe.
It seems that when terror attacks are not being staged, as in Nice and Orlando, they are effectively being allowed to happen. Although naturally, the authorities claim this is only because of tragic “mistakes”, “oversights” “lapses of judgement” and “security failings”.
All of which helps divert public attention from any suggestion that the powers that be may be instrumental in these attacks, if only passively. The worst that can happen is that they may be forced to sack one of their lower functionaries to appease public outrage.
The worst that can happen for anyone else, of course, is that we may get killed or mutilated in a terror attack. Ed.
Adel Kirmiche (left) and Abdel Malik Petitjean. Click to enlarge

Adel Kermiche (left) and Abdel Malik Petitjean. Click to enlarge

Why didn’t they warn the French people?

Security services sent picture of priest-killer with warning that attack was imminent to police four days before church murder but cops did NOT issue image to the public

Paul Thompson, Fidelma Cook, Peter Allen and Julian Robinson — Daily Mail July 28, 2016

French intelligence services had been sent a picture of priest killer Abdelmalik Petitjean and were warned an attack was imminent four days before the Normandy church attack, it has been revealed.

In yet another shocking security lapse, the 19-year-old was left to kill Father Jacques Hamel, 85, in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray on Tuesday.

His photo had been widely distributed to police stations after the anonymous tip-off ‘from abroad’ on July 22. It was received with a colour photograph of Petitjean, and said he ‘was preparing to take part in an attack on national territory’.

The warning went on: ‘He’s already in France, and is preparing to act alone, or with others.’

While no names were contained in the warning, Petitjean was a French national from an Alpine town, where he was educated and well known to the police.

Both Petitjean and his accomplice, Adel Kermiche, also 19, were also on terrorist watch lists, and should technically have been under surveillance.

Kermiche even wore an electronic tag, but it had been switched for four hours every morning to allow him a break from probation conditions set when he left prison in March.

Adel Kermiche

A shaven Adel Kermcihe. Click to enlarge

Police sources said the warning about Petitjean was received by Uclat, their counterterrorism coordination unit.

‘It was being acted upon, and everything was being done to track the terrorist down,’ said a source involved in the investigation into Father Jacques’ death.

‘Officers across the country were engaged in the race to find this suspect, but he evaded capture’.

Petitjean was put on a so-called Security ‘S’ List in June, because of his obsession with jihad, and his contacts with Isis.

Petitjean’s family home in the town of Aix-les-Bains, in the eastern Savoie department of France, has since been raided by officers.

His mother told them that she had not been in contact with Petitjean ‘since Tuesday’, suggesting he may have spoken to her just before attacking the church.

Kermiche also lived with his parents in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, where Petitjean linked up with him. An identity card belonging to Petitjean was found at Kermiche’s family home, which is close to the church.

Before carrying out their barbaric crimes, the pair recorded a video, in which they held up an Isis sign and swore allegiance to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. As well as murdering Father Jacques, the self-styled ‘soldiers’ took three nuns and two parishioners hostage, maiming one of the captives. Both terrorists were shot dead by police special forces commandoes as they tried to escape from the church.

There have been widespread calls for President Francois Hollande and senior ministers to resign following the security failures that have contributed to recent atrocities.

The majority of those responsible for terrorist attacks which have caused up to 250 deaths in France over the past 18 months were known to the authorities.

Many were on S-lists, while others should have been serving prison sentences after travelling to and from Isis terrorist camps in Syria. There is also widespread anger at the way the homegrown terrorists have been able to mass weapons in France.

Parisian prosecutor Francois Molins revealed today that the pair were carrying between them a fake explosives belt with a kitchen timer wrapped in tin foil, a backpack full of fake guns and three knives during the attack, and said they used nuns as human shields when they left the church.

This morning, deputy chief of France’s police union, Frederic Lagache, said: ‘It should not be possible for someone awaiting trial on charges of having links to terrorism to be released’ on house arrest.

According to the justice ministry, there are 13 terrorism suspects and people convicted of terrorist links wearing such tags. Seven are on pre-trial bail. The other six have been convicted but wear the electronic bracelet instead of serving a full jail term.

This morning, fresh details emerged of the horrific ordeal of hostages caught up in the siege.

A pensioner, named as ‘Guy’, was ordered to film the priest’s slaughter on a mobile phone thrust at him by the killer and then played dead after being knifed himself.

His wife, named as ‘Jeanine’, told RMC: ‘One of the terrorists approached me. He said he was not going to hurt me because we were to be used as hostages. He said the same to the three nuns. So we thought: Good, so we will not die immediately. Maybe we’ll die in an hour but…. the terrorist said, as a man, my husband would not be spared.’

Father Jacques

Father Jacques Hamel. Click to enlarge

Jeanine watched in horror as they grabbed Father Jacques: ‘First they put a sure thrust in his neck. He fell face towards the sky, towards us. You could see blood running from his mouth. Then they knifed him again and again and it was done.

‘They’d given the phone to my husband to film or photograph the Father once they’d executed him. Then they took my husband and did the same to him.’

Her husband was stabbed four times, in the neck, arms and back.

‘They wanted to kill him the same as the priest. So to stay alive and not attract more attention from them, he ‘played dead.’

Asked how she reacted to the sight of her husband being slashed, she said: ‘I don’t know. I looked at him and thought he was dead and that it was going to be our turn next. The terrorists held me by the back with a gun in my neck – was it fake? I don’t know. But it was in my neck. Then they sharpened the knife. That’s all.’

Jeanine saw her husband the same night and was reassured although he remains seriously ill.

‘I saw him move a little bit but he is doing well. didn’t lose consciousness,’ she said.

‘He tried to keep his fingers on the wound to prevent too much blood escaping. But he found it a long time before he was picked up.’

Yesterday, Sister Danielle, a nun who escaped the siege, revealed: ‘They told me ‘you Christians, you kill us’. They forced him to his knees. He wanted to defend himself. And that’s when the tragedy happened. They recorded themselves. They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic. It’s a horror.’

French President Francois Hollande, who visited the scene on Tuesday, said the country is now ‘at war’ with ISIS after the terror group claimed responsibility. This morning, French religious leaders joined forces to call for reinforced security.

French authorities admitted that both Kermiche, believed to have been born in France to parents of Algerian descent, and his partner were subject to security ‘S’ files, meaning they were known terror suspects who should have been under surveillance.

Kermiche was living with his parents in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray with an electronic tag on his ankle, after spending time in prison in both France and Switzerland. It emerged today that he was also awaiting trial on terror charges.

In a press conference, Parisian prosecutor Francois Molins said police are still seeking to identify the second attacker and raids were underway.

Describing both attackers as ‘these appalling cowardly people’, Mr Molins said police had tried to negotiate with them ‘but couldn’t get into the church because of the heavy locked door’.

He further revealed that the person who was seriously injured is no longer in a life-threatening condition.

Kermiche was known to have been a friend of Maxime Hauchard, a French jihadi who has appeared unmasked in videos showing the slaughter of captives from the USA and Syria.

French security sources said Kermiche met former Catholic Hauchard, now 24, close to his home village of Le Bosc-Roger-en-Roumois, in Normandy

It raises the possibility that Kermiche was inspired by Hauchard to carry out Tuesday’s attack in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

Kermiche’s mother revealed her son – once a sports-mad teenager who liked the Simpsons and Rihanna – had been ‘bewitched’ and ‘spoke with words that were not his’.

He reportedly had four siblings, one of whom was a doctor while friends said he would normally be the first to ‘break up any argument’.

But he became radicalised in a matter of months following the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris last January when 12 magazine staff were slaughtered by jihadists.

His mother, said to be a professor, revealed that he had started going to a mosque more often before lecturing her on her conduct, the Sun reports.

She said: ‘He said that one couldn’t exercise one’s religion peacefully in France. He spoke with words that were not his. He was bewitched.’

Friends said he eventually would not reason with them and merely quoted back verses ‘from the Koran’.

In March 2015, while still a minor, Kermiche used his brother’s ID to try to reach the terror group in Syria via Germany, but was arrested in Munich.

He was placed under judicial control with his parents, but after his 18th birthday again tried to return to the Middle East using an ID card belonging to a cousin.

Accompanied by two childhood friends, Kermiche headed to Switzerland overland and then took a plane to Turkey, hoping to cross the border into Syria.

Turkish police deported him back to Switzerland and, after being sent back to his hometown, he was tried and found guilty of ‘associating with a terrorist enterprise’ on May 22 2015.

After spending less than a year of his two-and-a-half-year sentence in prison, he was released on March 22 this year.

A prosecutor appealed the decision to release Kermiche, but he was released on bail on condition that he again stayed with his mother and father.

According to his bail conditions, Kermiche was also allowed to go out unsupervised between 8.30am and 12.30pm every day.

The revelation – made to the French TV news channel I-Tele – will cause further outrage in a country devastated by constant security failings.

 

Continues …