Master beheaded in Paris after discussing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad

A history teacher who started a discussion with students about the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad of Islam was beheaded on a French street and the suspected killer was shot dead by police, a police officer said.

The French counter-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation into the homicide for murder with an alleged terrorist motive, the prosecutor’s office said.

The gruesome murder of the teacher occurred in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine while the suspect was killed by the police in neighboring Eragny. The cities are located in the Val d’Oise region northwest of Paris.

“The body of the beheaded man was found around 5.30 in the afternoon,” an investigative source told the Daily Mail.

“When the police arrived, the alleged perpetrator was still present and threatened them with his weapons.”

A police officer said the suspect, armed with a knife and an airsoft pistol, was shot to death by police about 600 meters from where the teacher died.

The teacher had been threatened after opening a discussion “for a debate” about the cartoons, the police officer told The Associated Press.

A student’s father had filed a complaint against the teacher, another police officer said, adding that the alleged killer did not have a child at the school. The identity of the suspect was not made public.

“We didn’t see it coming,” Conflans resident Remi Tell told CNews television station. He described the city as peaceful.

It was the second terrorism-related incident since the opening of an ongoing trial into the January 2015 newsroom massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

When the trial opened, the newspaper republished cartoons of the prophet to underscore the right to freedom of expression. Exactly three weeks ago, a young man from Pakistan was arrested after stabbing, in front of the newspaper’s former offices, two people who suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The 18-year-old told police he was upset by the publication of the cartoons.

The incident came as the Macron government is working on a bill to tackle Islamist radicals who authorities say are creating a parallel society outside the values ​​of the French Republic.

– AP