FACE OF PRIEST KILLER: Church Terrorist 'Was Wearing Electronic Tag At Time Of Attack'

Image source: Daily Mail UK

One of the terrorists involved in slitting the throat of a priest in Normandy was wearing an electronic surveillance tag at the time of the attack.

Press Association report continues:

France's anti-terrorism prosecutor said the man, identified as 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, also evaded police twice using relatives' identities in attempts to reach Syria.

Francois Molins, Paris prosecutor, said Kermiche's tag was deactivated for a few hours every morning, corresponding with the time of the attack.

Speaking at a press conference, he explained the attacker - who was shot dead by police - was arrested in Germany in March 2015 trying to join extremists in Syria using his brother's identity, and then was arrested in Turkey two months later using a cousin's ID.

Kermiche, was a local teenager whose parents flagged his radical behaviour to authorities and grew up in a housing project in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, the town where father Jacques Hamel was slain.

The second assailant has not yet been identified.

View of the church, in the background, where an 84-year-old priest was murdered in an attack in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy (AP)

French authorities said the men had fake explosives and used nuns within the church as humans shields as police tried to enter the place of worship.

One had three knives and a fake explosives belt, while the other carried a kitchen timer wrapped in aluminum foil and had fake explosives in his backpack.

Mr Molins said the attackers, who claimed allegiance to Islamic State, also cried "Allahu Akbar" during the attack on 86-year-old Father Jacques Hamel.

He added that a minor, believed to be a 16-year-old younger brother of somebody wanted by police for trying to go to Syria or Iraq in 2015, has been detained in connection with the investigation.

Police raids are still under way.

A nun, identified as Sister Danielle, described how Father Hamel was forced to kneel on the floor before his throat was slit during the hour-long hostage-taking incident which began as the two knifemen burst into the parish church by a back door during morning mass.

She said: "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," she told BFM television.

Sister Danielle went on to describe the minister as a "great priest".

One elderly parishioner was also wounded in the attack, but was no longer in a life-threatening condition on Tuesday night.