French court convicts associates of jihadists who killed Catholic priest

PARIS, France - Three acquaintances of the teenage assailants who murdered an 85-year-old Catholic priest as he celebrated mass in his church in 2016 were respectively sentenced to 8, 10 and 13 years in prison for "criminal terrorist association", French media reported on Wednesday.

Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean cut the throat of Father Jacques Hamel at the foot of the altar of his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, and wounded a worshipper they took hostage before being shot dead by police.

The two attackers had said in a video they were members of Islamic State.

Father Hamel's killing occurred less than two weeks after a Tunisian man drove a truck through a crowd celebrating France's National Day on the Nice beachfront promenade, killing 86 people, and seven months after the coordinated attacks on Paris.

The attacks scarred France's national psyche and raised questions about the ability of the intelligence agencies to prevent such violence.

Among those who testified in the trial, held in the same courthouse were the Paris attacks trial is taking place, was a 92-year-old man who himself narrowly escaped being killed inside the church.

With the perpetrators of Father Hamel's murder dead, the defendants had been charged with 'criminal terrorist association' and not complicity in the attack.

The three men, aged between 25 and 36, had denied being aware of Kermiche and Petitjean's intentions. The prosecution had sought between 7 and 14 years in prison.

A fourth defendant, Rachid Kassim, a suspected French Islamist State jihadist presumed killed in a U.S. air strike in Iraq in 2017, was the alleged sponsor of the attack. He was convicted post-humously for "complicity".

Pope Francis has previously said Father Hamel died a martyr. -- Reuters