The ISIS terrorists who carried out the France church attack forced an elderly parish priest to kneel before filming themselves slitting his throat, it has emerged. Father Jacques Hamel, 85, was made to get to his knees before he was brutally butchered at the Church of the Gambetta in Normandy today, says a nun who escaped the attack.
His two murderers - one of whom has been named as year-old Adel Kermiche - captured the slaying on a mobile phone, according to Sister Danielle, who was one of several worshippers taken hostage during morning mass. They then performed a 'sermon' around the altar in Arabic - as armed cops rushed to the scene and terrified members of the congregation fled for their lives. Before his death, Father Hamel courageously tried to defend his parishioners, says the distraught nun, who raised the alarm after fleeing the church.
Speaking to BFM TV, she added that the two men 'recorded themselves' carrying out the murder and did 'a sort of sermon around the altar in Arabic'. Sister Danielle said she fled the parish church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near the northern city of Rouen, as one of the terrorists was slitting the priest's throat.
That's when the violence started. I got out quickly. They were busy attacking him with the knife, so they didn't see me leaving. They recorded what they were doing. It was like a prayer, a sermon at the altar in Arabic. The assailants, who were both on a terrorist watch-list, were shot dead by balaclava-wearing BRI police commandos after sprinting out of the church. Witnesses say they heard the men scream 'Allahu Akbar' as they came out of the building.
One was described as bearded and wearing a Muslim skullcap. This afternoon, French police arrested a teenager, known only as 'HB', in connection with the attack after raiding his home in the town following the church rampage.
