I will destroy your country: Priest killer appears in new Islamic State video

A teenage jihadist involved in the brutal killing of an elderly priest in a Normandy church is seen pledging to attack France in a newly released video. Abdel-Malik Nabir Petitjean directly addresses president Francois Hollande and prime minister Manuel Valls in the footage released by the Islamic State-linked Amaq news agency. The 19-year-old, who was shot dead by police after he and an accomplice slit the throat of 86-year-old Father Jacques Hamel, speaks mostly in French but uses some Arabic phrases. Dressed in a striped T-shirt and apparently filmed in a home, the teenager threatens “to destroy your country”.

The times have changed. You will suffer what our brothers and sisters are suffering. We are going to destroy your country

Abdel-Malik Nabir Petitjean

Petitjean and his accomplice Adel Kermiche, also 19, were previously purported to have appeared in another video pledging their allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. They were killed after storming the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray where they forced Fr Jacques to kneel as they filmed his throat being cut. The French government has faced a firestorm of criticism for failing to prevent the attack as both young men were on a police terror watch list and Kermiche was wearing an electronic tag. Meanwhile, Catholic leaders in France have marked Friday as a day of prayer and fasting “for our country and for peace in the world”.

Even if the government is not responsible for the wave of terrorism, it is guilty of not having done everything to stop it,

Laurent Wauqiez, the deputy leader of the right-wing Republicans party