Muslims leaders refuse to bury French priest killer

Muslim community leaders have refused to bury one of the terrorists who killed a Catholic priest this week in France.

Mohammed Karabila, 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 Adel Kermiche, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Kermiche was one of two attackers who stormed a Catholic church in the northern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during morning mass, slitting the throat of an 86-year-old priest, Jacques Hamel, and leaving a worshiper with serious injuries.



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

On Sunday, Muslims attended Catholic mass in churches around France in solidarity and sorrow following the brutal murder of a priest, the latest in a string of attacks.

More than 100 Muslims were among the 2,000 faithful who packed the 11th-century Gothic cathedral of Rouen, near the Normandy town where two teenagers slit the throat of 85-year-old Father Jacques Hamel.

“I thank you in the name of all Christians,” Rouen Archbishop Dominique Lebrun told them. “In this way you are affirming that you reject death and violence in the name of God.”

A few policemen and soldiers stood guard outside but did not conduct searches, seeking to reassure a jittery population after the second extremist attack in less than a fortnight.

In the southern city of Nice, where a extremist carried out a rampage in a truck on July 14, claiming 84 lives, local imam Otaman Aissaoui led a delegation of Muslims to a Catholic mass.



“Being united is a response to the act of horror and barbarism,” Aissaoui said.

Notre Dame church in southwestern Bordeaux also welcomed a Muslim delegation, led by the city’s top imam, Tareq Oubrou.

“It’s an occasion to show (Muslims) that we do not confuse Islam with Islamism, Muslim with jihadist,” said Reverend Jean Rouet.

Muslims were responding to a call by the French Muslim council CFCM to show “solidarity and compassion” over the priest’s murder on Tuesday.

This article originally appeared on CNN.