Suspect in Paris teacher’s beheading a Chechen teen

PARIS: A suspect shot dead by police after the gruesome beheading of a history teacher in an attack near Paris was an 18-year-old Chechen, police said.

France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said authorities investigating the horrific killing of the man in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine have also arrested nine suspects, including the grandparents, parents and 17-year-old brother of the attacker.

Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim Russian republic in the North Caucasus. Two wars in the 1990s triggered a wave of emigration, with many Chechens heading for western Europe.

France has seen occasional violence involving its Chechen community in recent months, believed linked to local criminal activity and score-settling.

A police official said the suspect in Friday’s attack was shot dead about 600m from where the teacher was killed.

He was armed with a knife and an airsoft gun – which fires plastic pellets – and police opened fire after he failed to respond to orders to put down his arms, and acted in a threatening manner.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived quickly at the school on Friday night to denounce what he called an “extremist terrorist attack”.

“One of our compatriots was murdered today because he taught ... the freedom of expression, the freedom to believe or not believe,” Macron said.

The French anti-terrorism prosecutor opened an investigation for murder with a suspected terrorist motive, the prosecutor’s office said.

Last month, a young man from Pakistan was arrested after stabbing two people with a meat cleaver outside the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.