2nd church attacker on France's security watchlist of terror suspects: media

The second young man who participated in the killing of a priest in a church earlier this week was known to intelligence services and police had had their eye on him for days ahead of the attack, local media reported on Thursday.

According to local reports, anti-terrorism investigators identified the second attacker as Abdel-Malik Nabil Petitjean, born in Saint-Die-des-Vosges, northeastern France. He had been on the "Fiche S" security watchlist since June 29 for becoming radicalized and for being a potential terrorist.

A foreign intelligence agency informed French intelligence services that a person was about to participate in an attack on national territory, they added.

Petitjean, 19, had no previous convictions and police did not have his fingerprints or DNA on file, which slowed his identification. DNA samples from his mother eventually enabled investigators to identify him, according to local media.

Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, the first formally identified attacker, seized six hostages in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, north France before killing an elderly priest and seriously wounding another hostage. They were shot dead by police.

The two teenagers appeared in a video broadcast by Amaq, an agency linked to Daesh (Arabic acronym for the Islamic State) on Wednesday, saying they were the church attackers and pledging allegiance to the terrorist cells. Authentication of the video is underway.

Kermiche was known to security services and had been arrested twice in 2015 for trying to reach Syria to join the Islamic State, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said.

Kermiche, 19, had been under house arrest and had to wear an electronic tag that allowed the police to trace him. However, the device was deactivated for a few hours each morning, Molins added. Endit