Five more people were arrested early on Saturday in the investigation into the beheading of a history professor near a college in the Paris suburbs, in a total of nine arrests, a judicial source told AFP.
Among the five people now detained are the parents of a student at the Bois d’Aulne college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, just outside the country’s capital, where the victim worked. These people had a discussion with the teacher about cartoons of Muhammad that the teacher had shown in class.
Three people from the alleged offender’s unfamiliar circle were also arrested, according to the same source. These five arrests are in addition to the other four that have already occurred in Evreux (northwest), including a minor, from the suspect’s family circle.
The identity of the attacker, in which an identity document was found, was also confirmed by investigators, according to a judicial source, and he is an 18-year-old Chechen Russian, born in Moscow, with no criminal record.
The French head of state considered, quoted by the agency France-Presse (AFP), that the murder of the history professor is a “characteristic Islamic terrorist attack”, however, “obscurantism will not win”.
“One of our countrymen was killed today because he taught […] the freedom to believe and not believe, ”added Macron, this time cited by the Associated Press (AP).
The French President stressed that this attack cannot divide the country, since, in Macron’s opinion, this is the objective of the extremists: “We must unite as citizens.”
The alleged suspect in the beheading of a man outside Paris, France, reportedly shouted “Allah ‘Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic) when he was shot by the police.
Police source, quoted by AFP, explains that the victim was a history teacher, who will have shown cartoons of the prophet Muhammad during a course on freedom of expression.
According to a source investigating this homicide, the police are also interested in a photograph on the social network Twitter, through a user who, meanwhile, closed the account, of the victim’s beheaded head.
The authorities are trying to understand whether this photograph was published by the alleged perpetrator of the murder or by someone else.
AFP reports that the photograph accompanied a message addressed to the French President, Emmanuel Macron, nicknamed “the leader of the infidels”.
“I executed one of the infernal dogs that dared to belittle Muhammad [o profeta Maomé]”, Would explain this message. The homicide occurred around 17:00 local (16:00 in Lisbon).
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