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After the beheading of a teacher in front of a Paris school, an 18-year-old student is an alleged perpetrator. Nine people around him were arrested. Did you have contact with terrorists?
Shock and deep horror in France: again an attacker brutally beat because of the Muhammad cartoons. The perpetrator ambushed a teacher in a Paris suburb and later beheaded him. Prime Minister Jean Castex said that the republic had been struck to its heart by Islamist terrorism. Several people, including those close to the alleged assailant, have been detained. Scores of people took to the streets across the country on Saturday in solidarity with the dead.
According to prosecutor Jean-François Ricard, the alleged aggressor is a man of Russian and Chechen origin, born in 2002. He arrived in France as a refugee and, according to the Russian embassy, had lived in France for twelve years. From this spring you should have a residence permit.
The 18-year-old has not been noticed due to radicalization. He was known to police for criminal offenses, for which he was not convicted, the prosecutor said Saturday. After the fact, the police shot him dead. Before that, he is said to have posted a photo of the victim online and sent a message to French President Emmanuel Macron, whom he described as the “leader of the unbelievers.” “I executed one of your hellhounds who dared to look down on Mohammed.”
Those arrested appear to have connections to Islamists.
The incident occurred on Friday afternoon in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. There, the attacker killed the 47-year-old teacher; his body was found decapitated with numerous wounds to the upper body and head. Investigators also found a bloodstained knife about a foot long near the crime scene.
Several relatives of the perpetrator were arrested on Friday night. According to information from judicial circles, five other people were later arrested, including the father of a student who allegedly argued with the teacher about his lessons. The father had complained on the Internet that the teacher had shown his students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. According to the prosecution, the detainee’s half-sister is said to have moved to Syria for the jihadist militia of the Islamic State (IS).
Teacher showed Muhammad cartoons in class
The prosecutor Ricard commented in detail on the alleged antecedents of the crime. The attack was preceded by threats against the teacher and the school. The teacher had addressed the topic of freedom of expression as part of the class in early October. The occasion was the reissue of the Muhammad cartoons by the satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo”. The teacher showed the corresponding cartoons in class.
Then a parent posted posts on social media, complained to the school leadership, and mobilized against the teacher. According to the media, the father was accompanied to the school by a known Islamist who, like the father, is now in police custody.
There were numerous flowers in front of the victim’s school on Saturday morning. The teacher was highly appreciated for his kindness and courtesy, said Nordine Chaouadi, mother of a student at the AFP news agency.
The prosecution did not reveal whether the alleged attacker had ever been a student at the victim’s school. According to the information, shortly after the fact he had posted a message of revenge on the short message service Twitter.
Macron: “They will not divide us”
According to President Emmanuel Macron, the attack is “clearly” an “Islamist terrorist attack.” The Antiterrorist Prosecutor’s Office has been investigating since Friday for “murder” in relation to an act of terrorism and for “terrorist criminal organization.”
Speaking briefly to the school on Friday night, Macron said: “You will not pass. You will not divide us.” The teacher was killed for teaching his students “freedom of expression and the freedom to believe and not believe.”
Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) and the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also condemned the fatal attack. “We must never be intimidated by terror, extremism and violence,” Maas wrote on the short message service Twitter on Saturday. Von der Leyen emphasized the importance of teachers in democracy.
Satirical newspaper newsroom repeatedly targeted by terror
Just a few weeks ago there was a knife attack in front of the former “Charlie Hebdo” publishing house in Paris. Two people were injured; here too, the author had given him caricatures of Muhammad as a motif.
There was a devastating murder attack against the editorial staff of “Charlie Hebdo” in January 2015, in which the newspaper’s top cartoonists were murdered. The trial of the alleged aides of the Islamist terrorist series is ongoing in Paris in January 2015, in which a total of 17 people died.
The editorial office is now in a secret location for security reasons. Following Friday’s crime, the satirical newspaper spoke of a “feeling of horror and outrage” on the online service Twitter.
