PARIS – The suspect behind the beheading of a French teacher who showed his students cartoons of Prophet Mohammed was an 18-year-old born in Moscow and originating from Russia’s southern region of Chechnya, said a judicial source today.
Five more people have been detained over the murder yesterday outside the French capital, including the parents of a child at the school where the teacher was working, bringing to nine the total under arrest, said the source, who asked not to be named.
The source said the two detained parents had signalled their disagreement with the teacher’s decision to show the cartoons.
The other new people held for questioning are members of the suspect’s social circle, but not family members.
The assailant was shot by police and later died of his injuries. Identification documents were found on him.
France has seen a wave of Islamist violence since the 2015 terror attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket here.
French anti-terror prosecutors said they are treating the assault as “a murder linked to a terrorist organisation”.
The attack happened on the outskirts of Paris about 5pm (11pm Malaysian time) near the middle school where the teacher worked in Conflans Saint-Honorine, a northwestern suburb around 30km from the city centre.
The killing bore the hallmarks of “an Islamist terrorist attack”, said President Emmanuel Macron when he visited the scene.
The victim is a history teacher who recently showed cartoons of the Prophet as part of a class discussion on freedom of expression, said police. – AFP, October 17, 2020
