One of the two ISIS-backed attackers who stormed a French church and beheaded a priest early Tuesday morning was well known to French counterterrorism officials as a security threat and was even living under house arrest. He was wearing his electronic bracelet at the time of the attack, according to French officials.
Identified in French news reports as “A.K.”, the 19-year-old French citizen was reportedly a fiche “S”— a designation used by French law enforcement to flag individuals considered serious threats to national security. He had tried twice to reach Syria in 2015, once via Munich and once via Geneva.
While he was still a minor, he began a first journey to Syria in March 2015—it quickly ended as he was arrested in Munich, Germany, before being sent back to France. He was placed under house arrest at his parents’ home in Saint-Etienne-du Rouvray.
A couple of months later, having turned 18, he tried once again to get to Syria—this time accompanied by a childhood friend. The two men went through Switzerland, but A. K. was arrested at the Geneva airport on May 14 and put on a Europe-wide terrorist watch list.
He was briefly imprisoned in Switzerland before being extradited to France, where he was arrested and charged with criminal association and relations with a terrorist enterprise. He was released on March 22 of this year with electronic monitoring, despite an appeal by Paris’ anti-terrorist prosecutor. Since then, the alleged jihadist had been under house arrest.
Despite the electronic monitoring, he was entitled to be out of the house from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m, according to weekly French newsmagazine L’Obs.
The church where the clergyman was slain was on a “hit list” found on Sid Ahmed Ghlam — another suspected jihadist who was plotting to carrying out attacks on two churches in a Paris suburb in April 2015. But the 24-year Algerian national, who was also known to security services, was arrested before he could do so after he reportedly shot himself by accident and had called an ambulance.