ISIS maniac who butchered priest worked at an AIRPORT handling baggage
ONE of the French fanatics who murdered a priest got through a police investigation to become an airport baggage handler “easily”, it emerged last night.
Abdelmalik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, both 19, were both on terrorist watchlists when they slit Father Jacques Hamel’s throat in Normandy on Tuesday.
Now it has emerged that Petitjean worked full time at Chambery airport, which is used by more than 250,000 passengers a year – including many from Britain – until just three months ago.
He started as a porter there in December after completing his Baccalaureate at the Marlioz high school in nearby Aix-les-Bains, where he lived.
There have been numerous security scares at French airports over the years, and all employers are now meant to undergo stringent tests.
A source close to the investigation said: “Petitjean had no trouble getting through a police investigation and psychological evaluation.
“He was considered to be a hardworking, friendly young man who did not pose any danger to passengers or others using the airport.
“He got through the police investigation easily.”
Petitjean left the airport in April and in June was caught by Turkish intelligence services as he tried to get into Syria to link up with ISIS.
Last Friday there was a warning that he was back in France and ready to strike.
But by this time it was too late for police in his homeland to catch him before he killed Father Jacques.
Yesterday ISIS released a second video showing Petitjean calling for more attacks on France.
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It came a day after another one was circulated in which Petitjean and Kermiche – who was electronically tagged since last March – swear allegiance to the terrorist organisation.
French PM Manuel Valls, who is facing calls to resign, yesterday said the anti-terror judges who let Kermiche out of prison should not be blamed.
They have to take a “different, case-by-case, approach” he said.
But he admitted the decision to free Kermiche under such weak bail conditions was a “failure”.
There are some five million Muslims in France – the largest group of its kind in any western European country.
Valls, who has often been criticised for his reactionary domestic policies, told Le Monde that his secular country needed ‘to invent a new relationship with Islam’.