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Teacher beheaded in Paris after discussing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad

Author
AP,
Publish Date
Sat, 17 Oct 2020, 9:36AM
The suspected killer was shot dead by police. Photo / Getty Images
The suspected killer was shot dead by police. Photo / Getty Images

Teacher beheaded in Paris after discussing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad

Author
AP,
Publish Date
Sat, 17 Oct 2020, 9:36AM

A history teacher who opened a discussion with students on caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad was decapitated in a French street and police have shot the suspected killer dead, a police official said.

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

The gruesome killing of the teacher occurred in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine while the suspect was killed by police in adjoining Eragny. The towns are located in the Val d'Oise region northwest of Paris.

"The body of decapitated man was found at around 5.30 in the afternoon," an investigating source told the Daily Mail.

"When police arrived, the person thought to be responsible was still present and threatened them with his weapons."

A police official said the suspect, armed with a knife and an airsoft gun was shot to death by police about 600m from where the male teacher was killed.

The teacher had been threatened after opening a discussion "for a debate" about the caricatures, the police official told The Associated Press.

The parent of a student had filed a complaint against the teacher, another police official said, adding that the suspected killer did not have a child at the school. The suspect's identity was not made public.

"We didn't see this coming," Conflans resident Remi Tell said on CNews TV station. He described the town as peaceful.

It was the second terrorism-related incident since the opening of an ongoing trial on the newsroom massacre in January 2015 at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

As the trial opened, the paper republished caricatures of the prophet to underscore the right of freedom of expression. Exactly three weeks ago, a young man from Pakistan was arrested after stabbing, outside the newspaper's former offices, two people who suffered non life-threatening injuries. The 18-year-old told police he was upset about the publication of the caricatures.

The incident came as Macron's government is working on a bill to address Islamist radicals who authorities claim are creating a parallel society outside the values of the French Republic.

 

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