The Islamic State-affiliated (IS) Aamaq News Agency on July 28 released a video described as showing “Abdel Malik Petitjean,” one of two men named by French authorities as the attackers who took hostages at a church in Saint-Etienne-Du-Rouvray, Normandy, France, on the morning of July 26. In the video, Petitjean calls for more attacks in France and other coalition countries, according to a report from Site Intelligence Group. The video has Arabic subtitles, but a full translation from the French was not immediately available. This is the second such video released by Aamaq after the July 27 release of a video showing Petitjean and the second named attacker, Adel Kermiche pledging allegiance to IS. The two videos show the same man, although independent confirmation of Petitjean’s likeness was not possible. The Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq News issued a communique on July 26 claiming IS was responsible for the attack. However, the communique itself mentions that “an insider source told Amaq News…that the 2 executors….were soldiers of the Islamic State.” Credit: Amaq News

COMMUNITY leaders have refused to bury one of the terrorists responsible for the murder of a Catholic priest in France.

They said they did not want to “taint” Islam by having any connection with Adel. Kermiche, the 19-year-old extremist who murdered Father Jacques Hamel in Normandy, reports The Sun.

Speaking on the decision, Mohammed Karabila, president of the local Muslim cultural association and imam, told Le Parisian: “We’re not going to taint Islam with this person.

“We won’t participate in preparing the body or the burial.”

Mr Karabila continued, insisting the mosque’s religious leadership would not be involved in any funeral proceedings.

But he admitted if the mayor’s office were to ask the mosque to receive the body, and Kermiche’s family said they wanted a burial, his mosque would be obligated to assign someone to oversee the process.

Kermiche’s family are yet to indicate whether they will hold a funeral for their son.

Local Muslims have supported the community leaders’ decision.

The pair were shot dead by police as they attempted to exit the place of worship, using nuns as human shields.

Meanwhile, the adoptive father of Abdel Malik Petitjean said news of his son’s horrific crime and subsequent death has left him “broken”.

Franck Petitjean said: “I haven’t slept in days. In three months ISIS brainwashed him.”

Officials are in the process of interviewing three people in connection with the act of terror, and another 19-year-old man has been charged with terror offences as cops rush to find the two attackers’ accomplices.

A cousin of Petitjean, who was formally identified as one of the two men believed to have killed a French priest in a church last week, has been placed in preventive detention, the Paris prosecutor’s office says.

The man, identified as Farid K, 30 — born in Nancy, eastern France — was put under formal investigation on suspicion of terrorist association with a view to perpetrating a crime, the prosecutor’s office said on Sunday.

Another man, named as Jean-Philippe Steven J, 20, was also put under formal investigation for attempting to travel to Syria in June with Petitjean.

He was also sent to preventive detention.

This story first appeared in The Sun.