Confusion over 'French' IS executioner's identity, as new video calls for attacks in France

Sources in the Islamic State (IS) armed group have told RFI that French national Mickaël Dos Santos is not one of the executioners in a recent video, contradicting French officials’ claim to have identified him. Dos Santos himself denied the claim on Twitter.

Mikaël Dos Santos was brought up in Champigny-sur-Marne to the east of Paris Reuters/Charles Platiau

"I categorically announce I was not present in the video,” the 22-year-old from Champigny-sur-Marne near Paris, tweeted on Thursday.

Earlier Paris prosecutors had said they had “precise and consistent clues” that Dos Santos was one of the group of men who executed 18 Syrian soldiers and US aid worker Peter Kassig in the IS video.

He ridiculed French intelligence officials for what he implied was a major gaffe.

Experts on jihadist groups from both RFI and sister TV station France 24 confirmed the authenticity of the twitter account.

And five IS members contacted by RFI all denied that the person identified by the authorities as the second executioner is Dos Santos, identifying him as a Syrian known as Abu Umarayn.

French officials claimed that Dos Santos's mother recognised her son in the video and broke down in tears.

But she later told BFMTV that she did not recognise her son and that she had told the secret services so on Wednesday and Thursday.

In his tweet Dos Santos maintained his family had denied his presence in the clip.

“The young fighter presented as being French speaks perfect Arabic with a pronounced Syrian accent, typical of people from the region, whereas Dos Santos, of Portuguese descent, only left France for Syria in the summer of 2013,” France 24's Wassim Nasr comments.

Nasr also noted distinct facial differences between Dos Santos and the man in the video, notably the hair and colour of the eyes.

Another French convert to Islam, Maxime Hauchard, was earlier identified as taking part in the video and has not denied the claim.

No other country has identified any of its nationals in the gruesome film.

French investigators launched a new inquiry on Thursday after IS put out a new video with three of its members speaking French and calling on “Muslim brothers” to go to Syria or ‘kill unbelievers” by any means possible in France.

The three, who call themselves Abu Osama al-Faranci, Abu Maryam al-Faranci, and Abu Salman al-Faranci, burn their passports and call on viewers to come to “the Caliphate, the land of Islam”.