Beheaded teacher trolled by parents
PARIS: A history teacher beheaded in a Paris suburb on Friday had been the target of online threats for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class, according to France’s antiterror prosecutor.
The father of a schoolgirl had sought 47-year-old teacher Samuel Paty’s dismissal and launched an online call for “mobilisation” against him after the lesson on freedom of expression, Jean-Francois Ricard said in a televised news conference.
Mr Paty was decapitated outside his school in ConflansSainte- Honorine, northwest of the capital, and the killer was shot dead by police.
The Russian embassy in Paris said the suspect was Abdullakh Anzorov, whose family had arrived in France when he was six and requested asylum. The 18-yearold had received a residence permit this year.
The schoolgirl’s father and a known Islamist militant are among 10 people arrested.
Mr Ricard said the school received threats after the class in October, which featured the caricatures — one of the prophet naked — with the girl’s father accusing Mr Paty of spreading “pornography”.
The girl and her father lodged a criminal complaint against the teacher, who in turn filed a complaint of defamation, said Mr Ricard.
The father named Mr Paty and gave the school’s address in a social media post just days before the beheading, which President Emmanuel Macron has labelled an Islamist terror attack.
Earlier, the father posted a video in which he said Islam and the prophet had been “insulted” at the school.
Mr Ricard did not say if the attacker had links to the school, pupils or parents, or had acted independently in response to the campaign.
Witnesses said he was spotted at the school on Friday afternoon asking pupils where he could find Mr Paty.
A photograph of Mr Paty and a message confessing to his murder were found on the assailant’s mobile phone. The prosecutor said the attacker had been armed with a knife, an airgun and five canisters. He had fired shots at police and tried to stab them as they closed in on him.
He was in turn shot nine times, said Mr Ricard.
A local in the Normandy town of Evreux where the attacker lived said he had become noticeably religious in recent years.
“Before, he got involved in fights but for the last two or three years he had calmed down” and had been “immersed in religion”, he said.
“He said his prayers … he spoke politely,” he added.
Police also arrested a friend of the schoolgirl’s father who had gone with him to see the principal to demand Mr Paty’s dismissal.
The friend, a known Islamist militant, was already on the radar of French intelligence services.
An arrest warrant is out for the father’s half-sister, who has joined Islamic State group fighters in Syria.
President Macron’s office said a national tribute would be held for Mr Paty on Wednesday. Hundreds of pupils, teachers and parents flooded the school to lay white roses.
Parents and teachers said Mr Paty gave Muslim children the option to leave the classroom before he showed the cartoons, saying he did not want their feelings hurt.