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France is once again in shock after what is classified as a terrorist attack. In the midst of the pandemic with increasing infection rates and new closures, what appears to be another pure execution with extremely violent motives occurs.
The victim was a 47-year-old history and geography professor. Near his workplace in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, he was extremely brutally attacked with a knife to the head on Friday night.
The perpetrator is said to be an 18-year-old with roots in Chechnya and born in the Russian capital Moscow. He was not known to French intelligence and it is believed that the motive was revenge. According to the prosecutor, he posted a photo of the victim on social media and a message claiming to be the perpetrator, writes Reuters.
Police shot him dead when they located him and he sat down to defend himself.
READ MORE: Man beheaded outside Paris school – investigates terrorist crime
He gave a lesson on freedom of expression.
The background is, French media report, that the teacher in early October gave a lesson for his students on freedom of expression and then showed a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. In connection with this, he is said to have said that Muslim students could leave the classroom.
But the lesson sparked strong reactions on social media and the threats must have been directed at the teacher before the murder.
“A citizen has been killed today because he was a teacher and because he taught freedom of expression,” President Emmanuel Macron said during a visit to the crime scene after the event.
The whole country is behind its teachers, Macron explained, adding that the terrorists will not divide France and win.
According to the anti-terrorist prosecutor Jean-François Ricard, the 18-year-old had met and encouraged the students to the teacher to point him out before the attack.
READ MORE: The Paris Act: evidently Islamist terror
Nine people called for questioning
At least nine people have been detained by the police to be heard if they are involved or have information that could clarify the course of events and lead to the arrest of an accomplice.
Four of the people were picked up overnight on Saturday, one of whom is a minor. They are said to be related to the perpetrator. Among the others heard are the parents of a boy who goes to the school where the teacher worked, according to a source from the Reuters news agency.
Investigated as a terrorist crime
The Public Ministry’s antiterrorist unit has launched an investigation into alleged terrorist-motivated killings.
On Saturday, flowers were placed outside the Collège du Bois d’Aulne school. Several of the teacher’s students testified about his deed:
“He really wanted to teach us things, sometimes we had debates,” Martial, 16, told the BBC.
A student’s father writes on Twitter that his daughter “has collapsed from the violence in the murder; how can I explain the unthinkable to her?”
Leading Muslims in France also condemn the attack in harsh terms.
– In a civilized world, you don’t kill an innocent person. Barbarism kills, says imam Tareq Oubrou in Bordeaux to France Inter.
The publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad triggered the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris on January 7, 2015. Twelve people were killed and eleven injured when two men entered the newsroom. Among the victims were five satirists. Attacks were also carried out against a Jewish grocery store and French police.
The trial of 13 men and one woman suspected of being involved in the attacks began in Paris last month, several in their absence. They are accused of having been responsible for the acquisition of weapons and of having financed and participated in terrorism. Several run the risk of being sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted.
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