Nabil Abdel Malik Petitjean

Abdel-Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche (both 19) were men who took five people hostage during morning Mass at a Catholic church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, before forcing the priest to his knees and slitting his throat. They wounded also one other hostage.

He was a student of commerce and finance who converted to Islam a few years ago. His mother told reporters that he had been visiting a cousin in northeast France before the attack and that she did not know how he had ended up in St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray.

According to The BBC, Petitjean “had been on a radicals’ watch list.”

The BBC said French police were already searching for Petitjean for several days before the attack.

The Obs, a French news site, said that the Coordinating Unit for the Fight Against Terrorism (UCLAT) had received information from a “reliable person” that Petitjean would be “willing to participate in an attack”

According to Huffington Post France, “Nabil Abdel Malik Petitjean had…been quickly suspected” because his his identity card was found during a search of the family home of Adel Kermiche.

The Obs, a French publication, reported that Petitjean was a native of Saint-Die-des-Vosges (Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne). “He had just finished his secondary education in the vocational school Marlioz Aix-Les-Bains and had earned his BA in 2015” and had no problems in school, said The Obs.

Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean, were shot dead by police as they ran from the church. Kermiche had pledged allegiance to ISIS  

Petitjean had attempted to travel to Syria, but yet failed.

L’Express said French police suspected Petitjean’s identity but needed to wait for DNA testing through his mother because he died from a bullet in the face, making visual identification impossible. L’Express said Petitjean was also identified through his phone, which was “geolocated” by the church.

In his ISIS allegiance video, Petitjean calls for more terrorist attacks. It comes a day after a video was released by ISIS showing both him and his accomplice, Kermiche, swearing allegiance to the terrorist organization

The town mayor's office will make the final decision on whether Kermiche can be buried in the town.  

Mohammed Karabila, who is president of the local Muslim cultural association, said that neither he nor the local Imam would take part in any burial service for the 19-year-old Kermiche.