“My family have been here for 35 years and we have always known him,” the manager of a beauty parlour down the road from the church told L’Express magazine. The priest’s throat was slit by two men armed with knives who took five people – Hamel, two nuns and two worshippers – hostage in the church. Described as modest, dedicated and always available for his parishioners, Father Jacques Hamel, 86, who was murdered in his Normandy church while celebrating morning mass, had been retired for nearly a decade. “This man was a good man,” said the president of the regional council, Hervé Morin. Hamel was “very discreet”, said the woman, who came to know him when she took catechism classes with him as a young girl.

Source: The Guardian July 26, 2016 13:20 UTC