Investigation launched into French-speaking jihadist on IS video

French officials on Thursday launched a formal investigation into a video released by the so-called Islamic State group, which features a French-speaking man and purports to show the execution of an Arab-Israeli.

"Islamic State" flag

According to sources close to the investigation, the man is probably Sabri Essid, who had close links to the French jihadist gunman Mohamed Merah, who in 2012 shot dead three soldiers before going on to kill four people at a Jewish school near Toulouse.

In the video, a youth identifying himself as 19-year-old Mohammed Said Ismail Musallam is shown kneeling in front of a boy who appears to be no more than 12. A man stands at his side.

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit that is standard in videos of IS executions, the man seen kneeling recounts how he was recruited by Israeli intelligence, a claim which is denied by his father.

The man standing nearby, speaking in French, issues threats against Jews in France, before the boy kills the hostage with a pistol.

The investigation has been opened to probe several possible crimes including murder linked to a terrorist organisation, association with criminals linked to terrorist organisations, condoning terrorism and inciting others to commit terrorist acts.

There is a "strong possibility" that the French-speaking man in the video is Essid, according to several sources close to the enquiry, though they acknowledge this could be hard to prove. It is thought that the boy could be his stepson.

Known to intelligence services as a key figure in the radical Islamist community in the southern city of Toulouse, Essid who is 31, is thought to have left France for Syria last year.

He had already been caught in December 2006 in Syria in a house known to shelter Al-Qaeda members on their way to Iraq.

He was sent back to France and was sentenced in 2009 to five years in jail, including one year suspended, in a case involving an Iraqi jihadist network.

His father had lived with Merah's mother, and Essid was close to the killer and his brother Abdelkader.