From sports-mad teen who loved Rihanna and the Simpsons to an ISIS killer:

One of the ISIS knifemen who butchered a Normandy priest was 'betwitched' by a notorious French jihadi who appeared in an execution video of a US aid worker, it has emerged.

Adel Kermiche was one of two attackers who stormed the church near Rouen during morning mass, slitting the throat of 84-year-old priest Jacques Hamel and leaving a worshipper with serious injuries.

The 19-year-old, who was shot dead alongside the second extremist, was known to have been a friend of Maxime Hauchard - a fanatic who appeared unmasked in videos showing the slaughter of American aid worker Peter Kassig and Syria captives.

It comes as the mother of Kermiche revealed her son - once a sports-mad teenager who liked the Simpsons and Rihanna - had been 'bewitched' and 'spoke with words that were not his'.

French security sources said Kermiche met former Catholic Hauchard, now 24, close to his home village of Le Bosc-Roger-en-Roumois, in Normandy.

It raises the possibility that Kermiche was inspired by Hauchard to carry out Tuesday's attack in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

Kermiche reportedly had four siblings, one of whom was a doctor while friends said he would normally be the first to 'break up any argument'.

But he became radicalised in a matter of months following the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris last January when 12 magazine staff were slaughtered by jihadists.

Kermiche's mother, said to be a professor, revealed that he had started going to a mosque more often before lecturing her on her conduct, the Sun reports.

She said: 'He said that one couldn't exercise one's religion peacefully in France. He spoke with words that were not his. He was bewitched.'

Friends said he eventually would not reason with them and merely quoted back verses 'from the Koran'.

This morning, France was still trying to comprehend how a jihadist awaiting trial on terror charges could attack a small-town church in broad daylight, killing a priest in the latest atrocity claimed by ISIS.

The church attack, claimed by ISIS, comes less than two weeks after Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed a truck into a crowd in the Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people and injuring over 300.

The third major strike on France in 18 months prompted a bitter political spat over alleged security failings, and revelations over the church attack were likely to raise further questions.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Kermiche first came to the attention of anti-terror officials when a family member alerted he was missing in March 2015. German officials arrested him and found he was using his brother's identity in a bid to travel to Syria.

He was released under judicial supervision, but in May fled to Turkey where he was again arrested and returned to France. He was then held in custody until March this year.

Kermiche was released and fitted with an electronic bracelet, which allowed him to leave his house on weekdays between 8am and 12.30pm, Molins said.

Tuesday's attack prompted renewed opposition calls to further harden France's anti-terrorism legislation.

But Socialist President Francois Hollande - who faces a tough re-election bid next year - rejected them, saying: 'Restricting our freedoms will not make the fight against terrorism more effective.'

Changes made to legislation in 2015, and the extension of a state of emergency in the wake of the Nice attack, already gave authorities sufficient 'capacity to act,' he said.

But the deputy chief of France's police union, Frederic Lagache, said: 'It should not be possible for someone awaiting trial on charges of having links to terrorism to be released' on house arrest.

Mohammed Karabila, who heads the regional council of Muslim worship for Haute Normandie, where the church attack took place, asked simply: 'How could a person wearing an electronic bracelet carry out an attack? Where are the police?'

Kermiche and another assailant entered the centuries-old stone church of Saint Etienne, taking hostage the priest, Jacques Hamel, three nuns and two worshippers.

One of the nuns managed to escape and call police, who tried to negotiate with the hostage-takers.

The nun, Sister Danielle, told local radio RMC that the men were speaking Arabic and shouting, and had 'recorded' the attack.

Three hostages were lined up in front of the church door, meaning police could not launch an attack, said Molins.

Two nuns and one worshipper exited the church followed by the two attackers, one carrying a handgun, who charged at police shouting 'Allahu akbar' (God is greatest). Police gunned down the jihadists.

Joanna Torrent, a 22-year-old store employee, was stunned to see terror hit her small working-class town of 30,000 people, far from bustling tourist hubs like Paris and Nice.

'I thought it would only be in big cities, that it couldn't reach here,' she said.

Saint Etienne's stone-and-brick town hall, a short distance from the church, became a communal grieving place as residents signed a condolence book and left candles and flowers.

A silent march on Thursday will set off from the town hall.

Outside Saint Etienne's Yahya Mosque - which sits on land donated by the adjacent Sainte Therese church - Karabila said his community had 'never had problems with the authorities or the neighbours'.

He added: 'Here we don't preach hatred or we would be shut down.'

PRIEST KILLING IS LATEST IN SPATE OF DEADLY ATTACKS ACROSS EUROPE

Tuesday's attack is the latest to hit Europe in what has been a year of bloodshed on the continent:

July 24: Festival suicide bombing - A failed Syrian asylum seeker set off an explosive device near an open-air music festival in the southern city of Ansbach that killed himself and wounded a dozen others.

The 27-year-old had spent time in a psychiatric facility, while the regional authorities said an there was 'likely' a jihadist motive for the attack.

However a spokesman for the interior ministry later said there was as yet 'no credible evidence' of a link to Islamic extremism.

July 24: Knife attack - A Syrian refugee was arrested after killing a Polish woman with a large kebab knife at a snack bar in the southwestern city of Reutlingen, in an incident police said did not bear the hallmarks of a 'terrorist attack' and was more likely a crime of passion.

Three people were also injured in the assault, which ended when the 21-year-old assailant was deliberately struck by a BMW driver, believed to be the snack bar owner's son, trying to stop the man.

July 22: Munich mall mass shooting - David Ali Sonboly, 18, shot dead nine people at a Munich shopping mall before turning the gun on himself, having spent a year planning the rampage.

Police said that the German-Iranian was 'obsessed' with mass killers like Norwegian right-wing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the Islamic State group.

July 18: Train axe attack - A 17-year-old migrant wielding an axe and a knife went on a rampage on a regional train, seriously injuring four members of a tourist family from Hong Kong and a German passer-by.

ISIS group subsequently released a video purportedly featuring the assailant, named by media as Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, announcing he would carry out an 'operation' in Germany, and presenting himself as a 'soldier of the caliphate'.

He is believed to have been Afghan or Pakistani.

July 14: Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed a truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people and injuring over 300. 

The Nice attack was the third major strike on France in 18 months and was claimed by ISIS.

June 14: A Frenchman of Moroccan origin stabs a police commander to death outside his home in a Paris suburb and kills his partner, who also worked for the police. The attacker told police negotiators during a siege that he was answering an appeal by Islamic State. 

March 22: Suicide attacks claimed by ISIS kill 32 people and wound more than 300 at the Brussels airport and Maelbeek metro station, near European Union offices. They appear to have been carried out by members of the same cell that committed attacks in Paris four months earlier.

November 13, 2015: Coordinated suicide attacks in Paris kill 130 people and wound more than 350 at the Bataclan concert hall, cafes and the national stadium. ISIS claims responsibility for the attacks. 

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