A MUSLIM COMMUNITY in France has refused to bury a teenager who killed a Catholic priest earlier this week.
Adel Kermiche was killed by police in Tuesday’s attack in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, which claimed the life of 86-year-old priest Jacques Hamel, along with Abdel Malik Petitjean, also 19.
Kermiche was awaiting trial on terror charges and had been fitted with an electronic tag despite calls from the prosecutor for him not to be released.
Community leaders in the town told Le Parisien they did not want to “taint” Islam by assisting with the burial.
“We will not sully Islam with that person,” said the head of the mosque in the city, Mohammed Karabila.
Local Muslims supported the decision, the paper reported.
Local man Khalid El Amrani is quoted as saying the decision is “normal”.
Petitjean was born to a family of Algerian origin and lived in the quiet lakeside town of Aix-les-Bains in the shadow of the Alps, popular with visitors seeking thermal cures.
Djamel Tazghat, who manages the local mosque in the Aix-les-Bains suburb where Petitjean lived in social housing, said he recognised the young man in a video published by the Islamic State group in which the two pledged allegiance to the jihadist movement.
His adoptive father told reporters the incident had “broken” him.
He said that Islamic State, which has claimed credit for the attack, “brainwashed him”.
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