Four alleged accomplices in the murder of an 85-year-old French priest go on trial in Paris after years of investigations into one of the most grisly jihadist attacks to rock France in recent years. Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit at the foot of the altar while celebrating mass on July 26, 2016, at his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class suburb of Rouen in northwest France. The two 19-year-old assailants, Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean, also seriously injured one of the worshippers they took hostage before being shot and killed by police as they tried to leave the church. They claimed in a video to be members of the Islamic State, which later called them its "soldiers" retaliating for France's fight against jihadists in Syria and Iraq. FILE IMAGES