PARIS (AFP) - Four alleged accomplices in the murder of an 85-year-old French priest go on trial in Paris on Monday (Feb 14) after years of investigations into one of the most grisly terror attacks that have rocked France in recent years.
Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit at the foot of the altar while celebrating mass on July 26, 2016, at his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class suburb of Rouen in north-west France.
The two 19-year-old assailants, Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean, also seriously injured one of the worshippers they took hostage before being shot and killed by police as they tried to leave the church.
They claimed in a video to be members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, which later called them its "soldiers" retaliating for France's fight against extremists in Syria and Iraq.
Father Hamel's murder came as the country was on high alert over a series of Islamist attacks that began with a massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and which have claimed more than 250 lives in total.
It also raised questions about the ability of French intelligence agencies to prevent such attacks, since Kermiche was wearing an electronic bracelet at the time after anti-terrorism police learned he had twice tried to go fight in Syria.
Prosecutors say that Jean-Philippe Jean Louis, Farid Khelil and Yassine Sebaihia knew about the attackers' plan, with Jean Louis travelling with Petitjean to Turkey just weeks before the attack in an attempt to reach Syria.
They have denied the charges of conspiracy with terrorists, with their lawyers calling them "scapegoats".
'Pounce on the infidels'
Rachid Kassim, a Frenchman who became a key ISIS recruiter and is the alleged instigator of the attack, has been charged with complicity in the killing by helping to choose the target and providing advice.
"Pounce on the infidels like a hungry lion pounces on its prey," Kassim told them in audio and social media conversations discovered by investigators.
Police also say Kassim was behind the chilling murder of a police officer and his companion in front of their three-year-old son in Magnanville, a Paris suburb, just a few weeks before Father Hamel's murder.
He is believed to have been killed in a coalition airstrike near Mosul, Iraq, where he lived, but is being tried in absentia since the death has not been confirmed.
Despite the absence of the main culprits, Father Hamel's relatives and the victims are hoping to learn how the young men came to embrace the extremist ideology that led to the attack.
Mr Guy Coponet, who was critically injured while being held hostage in the church, "wants to understand how these youths, barely out of adolescence, could commit such horrors", his lawyer Mehana Mouhou told AFP.
Now 92, he plans to attend at least part of the hearings set for the next four weeks.
Catholic Church officials have launched the process to seek beatification for Father Hamel, a first step to canonisation or sainthood, which is currently being examined by the Vatican.
Pope Francis, who approved a fast-track process for Father Hamel, called him a "martyr" who died for his faith, which means there is no requirement of a proof of miracles in his case.
