Teenager asked pupils to identify French teacher before beheading him

By Sybille de La Hamaide and Thierry Chiarello

 

Flowers at the Bois d'Aulne college are seen after the attack in the Paris suburb of Conflans St Honorine, France, October 17, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

 

PARIS/CONFLANS-SAINTE-HONORINE, France (Reuters) - The teenager who beheaded a teacher outside the school in a Paris suburb where he taught had approached pupils in the street and asked them to point out his victim, anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said on Saturday.

 

Police shot dead the 18-year-old attacker, who was born in Russia, minutes after he murdered 47-year-old history teacher Samuel Paty in broad daylight in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on Friday.

 

A photograph of the teacher's body, accompanied by a message claiming responsibility posted on Twitter, was discovered on the assailant's phone, found near his body. Ricard said the Twitter account belonged to the attacker.

 

The post was removed swiftly by Twitter, which said it had suspended the account because it violated the company's policy.

 

Ricard quoted the message as saying: "In the name of Allah the most gracious, the most merciful, ... to (President Emmanuel) Macron, leader of the infidels, I have executed one of your hell-hounds who dared to belittle (Prophet) Mohammad."

 

Earlier this month Paty had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a class on freedom of expression, angering a number of Muslim parents. Muslims believe that any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous.

 

The attacker, of Chechen origin, had been living in the town of Evreux northwest of Paris, and was not previously known to the intelligence services, Ricard told a news conference.

 

The killing shocked the country and carried echoes of an attack five years ago on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Prime Minister Jean Castex said it bore the hallmarks of Islamist terrorism.

 

"I want to share with you my total indignation. Secularism, the backbone of the French Republic, was targeted in this vile act," Castex said.

 

Unions, anti-racism groups and Charlie Hebdo are organising a gathering in central Paris on Sunday to commemorate the murdered teacher.

 

A national tribute will be organised for Wednesday, Macron's office said.

 

'BETWEEN HAMMER AND ANVIL'

 

Four close relatives of the attacker were detained soon after the attack. Five more were detained overnight, including the father of a pupil at Paty's school, College du Bois d'Aulne, and an acquaintance of the pupil's father known to the intelligence services, the anti-terrorism prosecutor said.

 

A tenth person was placed in custody in connection with the attack later on Saturday, BFM TV said, citing judicial sources.

 

In the days after the lesson on freedom of expression, the pupil's father recorded several videos in which he branded the teacher a thug and called for him to be fired. In one, he urged others to "join forces and say 'stop, don't touch our kids'".

 

The videos where shared on social media.

 

The half-sister of the pupil's father had joined Islamic State in Syria in 2014, the prosecutor said. It was not immediately clear if the teenage attacker knew either the pupil's father or the father's acquaintance.

 

Parents of pupils laid flowers at the school gate. Some said their children were distraught.

 

"(My daughter) is in pieces, terrorised by the violence of such an act. How will I explain to her the unthinkable?" one father wrote on Twitter.

 

In an outpouring of grief, the hashtag #JeSuisSamuel (I am Samuel) trended on social media, like the #JeSuisCharlie call for solidarity after the attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015.

 

Before that attack, Charlie Hebdo had published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, unleashing divisions that still cast a pall over French society.

 

Muslim leaders condemned Friday's killing, which many public figures perceived as an attack on the essence of French statehood and its values of secularism, freedom of worship and freedom of expression.

 

Deadly attacks by Islamist militants or their sympathisers was devastating for France's Muslim community, Tareq Oubrou, the imam of a Bordeaux mosque, said.

 

"We are between hammer and anvil," he told France Inter radio. "It attacks the Republic, society, peace and the very essence of religion, which is about togetherness."

 

(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide, Tangi Salaun, Caroline Pailliez and Geert de Clercq; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Frances Kerry and Pravin Char)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-10-18

 

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Does allah feel better now?

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

Does allah feel better now?

 

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

Does allah feel better now?

I know what would make me feel better..............I could care less about allah

Stop taking in islamic refugees.

Here in the UK it seems all those who preach Allah are running the drugs trade. Even the Jamaicans hate them Somalis now since they took all the street business. Horrible little <deleted>s riding around on electric scooters and of course now masked off ???? 

 

Oh and yes the skinny stereotype is spot on for them . Than you to Tony Blair for that great idea of letting that lot in at the turn of the century. 

why do you expect any different rom the sharia law cult?

No place in a civil society. The EU should have severely tightened their immigration policies decades ago and refused to allow these economic parasites to pull at their heartstrings.

Mental illness.

1 hour ago, chuang said:

Stop taking in islamic refugees.

.... from countries with an excess of un-educated, aggressive men.

 

Countries where women have no influence on culture or moral behaviours, where religion has been perverted and where demographics and a failing economy has created an uneducated workforce are not ideal for immigration, and this creates the condition where someone feels that beheading over a cartoon is a rational action.

17 minutes ago, wombat said:

why do you expect any different rom the sharia law cult?

...in countries daft enough to allow it.

These are the same people who demanded the independence of their country, who spit and who still spit on the countries which welcome them with a great deal of assistance, - financial, material, medical care .....
The mistreatment of these countries towards them, which they always put forward to denigrate the countries which built Africa, must not have disturbed them too much, since they all come to their "executioners".

14 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

.... from countries with an excess of un-educated, aggressive men.

 

Countries where women have no influence on culture or moral behaviours, where religion has been perverted and where demographics and a failing economy has created an uneducated workforce are not ideal for immigration, and this creates the condition where someone feels that beheading over a cartoon is a rational action.

rational and consensual action

5 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Ricard quoted the message as saying: "In the name of Allah the most gracious, the most merciful, ... to (President Emmanuel) Macron, leader of the infidels, I have executed one of your hell-hounds who dared to belittle (Prophet) Mohammad."

I don't think he really thought that one through did he? If his god is gracious and merciful then why did he have to kill in his name?

Unfortunately, even if they are uneducated, submissive, women are worse than men and, even if they are beaten, raped every night, they will obey their husbands.

 

What I don't get is the following: according to the report on the BBC, the teacher who was sensitive to the feelings of Muslims, invited the Muslim students to leave the class when the cartoons were being shown. So it could not have been blasphemy if no Muslim students did not see it.

 

But the part that I really do not get is that none of these jihadists and even countries that are run my Islamic theocratic governments seem to be bothered by the treatment of Uighurs, forcing them to recant Allah. Surely that is much much worse than a mere cartoon, no matter how blasphemous!

10 minutes ago, Proboscis said:

But the part that I really do not get is that none of these jihadists and even countries that are run my Islamic theocratic governments seem to be bothered by the treatment of Uighurs, forcing them to recant Allah.

China paid them off.

53 minutes ago, Proboscis said:

What I don't get is the following: according to the report on the BBC, the teacher who was sensitive to the feelings of Muslims, invited the Muslim students to leave the class when the cartoons were being shown. So it could not have been blasphemy if no Muslim students did not see it.

 

But the part that I really do not get is that none of these jihadists and even countries that are run my Islamic theocratic governments seem to be bothered by the treatment of Uighurs, forcing them to recant Allah. Surely that is much much worse than a mere cartoon, no matter how blasphemous!

Soft targets are a much easier way to enter heaven.

3 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Soft targets are a much easier way to enter heaven.

Not all that soft as he was shot dead a while later.

My idea of a soft target is one where I can kill them and live to tell the tale.

Just now, BritManToo said:

Not all that soft as he was shot dead a while later.

My idea of a soft target is one where I can kill them and live to tell the tale.

Ah - but you've not fallen for the lies about virgins and a free Elite Visa for paradise.

Bring back the death penalty for these scum 

 

a chopping block would work

1 minute ago, AbeNormal said:

Bring back the death penalty for these scum 

 

a chopping block would work

Did you read the reports?  The perpetrator was shot dead.  Martyrdom is what they want.

3 hours ago, sirocco said:

Unfortunately, even if they are uneducated, submissive, women are worse than men and, even if they are beaten, raped every night, they will obey their husbands.

 

because if they don't they will disappear 

Inflammatory posts removed.

 

On 10/18/2020 at 6:58 AM, canuckamuck said:

Does allah feel better now?

Allah has nothing to do with this, just some stupid dangerous extremist who doesn't know anything about his own religion! Just like ANY extremist! You think the Israelis (or whatever) extremists are so much better?!?

BTW translation for Allah is God

I struggle with any extremist religious ideology, especially when they think killing is in the name of religion.

 

Now I'll fess up I'm a pretty avid Catholic, so it's not like I'm anti religion.

 

But this Islamic fanatical resurgence is like something from the middle ages of the Inquisition

 

When will this ever end? In some ways it almost makes me question my own faith if this is what religion results in.  

10 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

When will this ever end?

When the Caliphate reigns supreme.

 

Wouldn't those pointing out the teacher to the Muslim murderer be accessories to that murder?

27 minutes ago, Thailand said:

Wouldn't those pointing out the teacher to the Muslim murderer be accessories to that murder?

Absolutely.

They were both lying - and designating the Teacher to the vindictiveness of the audience they sent/share, their video to - knowing there were islamists among the believers.

As usual and of course everybody condemns the killing now that the job is done.

AFAIK, noone expressed any form of regrets for participating to the organized "believers action class" that led to the final sanction which was predictable, an other terror attack related to Charlie Hebdo occured 3 weeks before.

It must be reminded that the Teacher showed cartoons of all religions to debate about Free Speech. 

56 minutes ago, Thailand said:

Wouldn't those pointing out the teacher to the Muslim murderer be accessories to that murder?

Depends on the motivation (and religion) of the informer.

The backlash will be bloody and disproportionate. No sympathy for Muslims from me.