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Four men are on trial today, Monday, for the murder of an elderly priest who was attacked with a knife inside the church where he was ministering - a jihadist attack that had shocked France.
Priest Jacques Amel was celebrating morning mass in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-de-Rouvray when two men entered the church in July 2016, forced the 85-year-old to kneel and cut his throat. Both were later shot dead by police officers.
The four defendants have been charged with complicity in the attack and membership of a "criminal terrorist organisation".
Prosecutors have announced that the men - all of them born in France - were in contact with the perpetrators of the assassination.
Three of them sat in the dock today at the historic courthouse in the French capital.
Before the hearing began, their lawyers said their clients were innocent, Radio Franceinfo reported.
One of the defendants is being targeted by the US military
The fourth defendant, Rashid Qassim, who prosecutors allege had contacted the attackers from Syria and encouraged them to murder the priest, is being tried in absentia.
The U.S. military claims it had targeted Qassim, whom it describes as a senior member of Islamic State, in a strike near Mosul, Iraq, in February 2017, though it has not specified whether he was killed.
Amel's killing was the first jihadist attack inside a church in western Europe and came just 12 days after an attack on a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice by a Tunisian man who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State killed 84 people.
The hearing will last at least a month.
Source: in.gr
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