Chechen assailant “enjoyed refugee status”

The beheading in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) of a history and geography teacher, who had shown his students caricatures of Mohammed, shocked France on Friday.

A total of nine people are currently in police custody. The national anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard, spoke at 3 p.m. and gave some details.

“A call to say stop”

“The municipal police designates a man carrying a weapon as the designated perpetrator. The national police have identified the latter,” he confirmed to the press.

The assailant, Abdoullakh Abouyezidvitch A., was born in Russia in 2002 and enjoyed refugee status. He was unknown to the intelligence services and had never been convicted. “A dagger-type knife, an airsoft-type handgun and five gas cartridges were seized,” said the prosecutor.

The prosecutor in particular returned to the context of the facts. “A debate was organized on the publication of the cartoons of Muhammad in class on October 7. The same evening, the father of one of the students published on his Facebook account an account of the facts about the dissemination of an image of the prophet naked and called for mobilization against the professor, “he says. On October 8, he went with another individual to the college to “vehemently demand the exclusion of the teacher”.

“That same evening, the parent again posted a text on his Facebook account in which he named the teacher and urged to ‘say stop’.” The father also went to the police station with his daughter to file a complaint “against the dissemination of pornographic images.

The student said that the teacher that day asked Muslim students to raise their hands and come out. What the teacher refuted. He said on the other hand that he suggested to his students not to look at the drawings, “in the event that they might have been hit,” reports the prosecutor. At the same time, the professor also filed a complaint for “public defamation”. Following this affair, the principal of the college reported “many threatening calls”.

Finally, on the day of the murder, the assailant was in front of the college in the afternoon and had asked students to identify the teacher, according to the prosecutor. A text of claim and a photo of his victim were found in his phone after the fact.

The profile of those in custody

Currently, 9 people are in police custody: four are from the direct family entourage of the assailant, two people have presented themselves spontaneously and indicate having been in contact with the assailant before the tragedy.

The pupil’s father is also in custody as well as the person who accompanied him to college to demand the resignation of the professor and his wife. The prosecutor specifies in particular that the father’s half-sister joined Daesh in Syria in 2014 and is the subject of a search warrant.

“Investigations are continuing to clarify the author’s schedule,” the prosecutor concluded.

>> To read also: “It’s horrible”, “We are afraid”: in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, parents and residents are in shock

A national tribute

The Élysée also announced this Saturday that a “national tribute” would be paid to the teacher. This tribute, the date of which has not yet been set, is organized in coordination with the family, said the Elysee.

Emmanuel Macron went to the scene of the attack on Friday evening, in Conflans-Saine-Honorine, where he denounced a “characterized Islamist attack”.

“Our teachers will continue to awaken the critical spirit of the citizens of the Republic, to emancipate them from all totalitarianisms and all obscurantisms,” Jean Castex hammered on Twitter on Saturday.

The Prime Minister met on Saturday morning, alongside the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, with representatives of the staff of National Education. “In solidarity with its teachers, the State will react with the greatest firmness so that the Republic and its citizens live, free! We will never give up. Never”, he added.

“The State alongside teachers to protect them”

The State will be alongside teachers to “protect” them, promised the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer in a video message to “all teachers in France” broadcast the day after the beheading of a teacher in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines).

Jean-Michel Blanquer, who received the teachers’ unions at the ministry on Saturday morning with Prime Minister Jean Castex, paid tribute to the “cowardly assassinated” history teacher

“I will be, and our country will be at your side to protect you, allow you to do your job which is the most essential job, pass on to our children the knowledge and values ​​which are our common good”, he said. declared.

The teacher “was assassinated for having given a course which had a link with a pillar of democracy: freedom of expression. It is a vile and cowardly act, it is an attack on the Republic, because the school is the backbone of the Republic, ”he said.

Sunday Gathering Call

Several associations and unions launched a call on Saturday for a rally on Sunday at 3 p.m. Place de la République in Paris to pay tribute to the professor. This appeal was launched by SOS Racisme, FSU, Sgen-CFDT, Unsa-Education, SNALC, FCPE, FIDL (high school union) FAGE, UEJF and “Dessinez Create Liberty”.

“We are still awaiting authorization from the prefecture,” Frédéric Marchand, secretary general of Unsa Education, told reporters after a meeting at the Ministry of Education with the teachers’ unions, in the presence of Prime Minister Jean Castex.