Man charged over jihadist murders of police couple

Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, 24, has been linked to Larossi Abballa, the Islamic State extremist who claimed the June 2016 attack in a live video from the murder scene before being killed by police in a shootout, the sources added.

Aberouz, who was not on a terrorism watchlist but was known to be radicalised, was arrested in the western Paris suburb of Les Mureaux. He was charged with being an accomplice to murder in connection with a terrorist act and remanded in custody.

His brother has already been charged with providing logistical assistance to Abballa, whose chilling attack -- one in a string of assaults in France since January 2015 -- caused shock in police ranks.

Abballa stabbed police captain Jean-Baptiste Salvaing to death outside his home in Magnanville, 60 kilometres west of Paris, and then slit the throat of his companion Jessica Schneider in front of the couple's three-year-old son.

In a Facebook Live video from the scene, he called for further terror attacks.

Aberouz was already investigated over a foiled attack by a group of female jihadists who tried to set set fire to a car containing gas canisters near Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in September 2016.

Charged with failing to report that plot, he spent four months in preventive custody before being released in January.

Investigators believe that a notorious French IS member, Rachid Kassim, directed both attacks from the Middle East, using the encrypted Telegram app.

Kassim is believed to have been killed in a coalition air strike near the Iraqi city of Mosul in February.