Paris attack: Gunman ‘shouting Allahu Akbar’ BEHEADS teacher

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Footage has been released of the moment a teenage Chechen gunman was shot by French police after beheading a teacher for showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The 18-year-old reportedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before attacking the teacher with a knife in a Paris suburb in broad daylight on Friday afternoon.

His victim was a 47-year-old middle school history teacher named as Samuel P, who had enraged parents by displaying cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to pupils in a lesson on freedom of expression.  

The suspect, whose identity has not been officially established, was shot by French officers as they tried to arrest him. He later died of his injuries, police said. 

Four people, including a minor, have been arrested in connection with the incident, a judicial source told AFP early on Saturday. All were related to the assailant, the source added.

A video taken by a local resident shows the police arriving to attempt the arrest, ultimately leading to the shooting of the alleged assailant.

Filmed over the back fence of the resident’s garden, police can be seen and heard shouting at someone – presumably the suspect – who is out of shot, and pointing their guns at him as they close in.

In French, they can be heard shouting at him repeatedly to ‘throw your gun’ and ‘get down to the ground’. 

At one point, an officer is heard saying that he is ‘shooting’, but says ‘ç’est des billes’ which literally translates to ‘these are marbles’ – suggesting the teenager was firing a BB Gun.

More inaudible shouting is heard as the police move up the road, where they are hidden from view behind some trees. Seconds later, multiple gunshots can be heard as the police shoot the suspect dead. 

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced what he called an ‘Islamist terrorist attack’, and hours after the attack visited the school where the teacher worked in the town of Conflans-Saint-Honorine and met with staff.

He said: ‘One of our compatriots was murdered today because he taught… the freedom to believe or not believe.

‘He said the attack should not divide France because that is what the extremists want. We must stand all together as citizens.’       

A source told Le Parisien: ‘The victim had recently given a lesson to his students on freedom of expression and had shown the caricatures of Muhammad’. The murdered teacher was later identified as Samuel P.

His lesson led to an enraged man confronting him with a knife, and then cutting his head off, said the source.

The dead suspected terrorist was described as an 18-year-old who was born in Moscow, and who had links with the school. 

The bloodbath took place in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb some 25 miles from the centre of the French capital on Friday at around 5pm (1500 GMT) near the school.

A police source said the scene has been cordoned off and a bomb disposal unit dispatched because of the suspected presence of an explosive vest. 

‘[The attacker] is believed to be from a Chechen background,’ said an investigating source, referring to the Russian Federation republic.

Thousands of battle-hardened Chechen refugees, including many devout Muslims, entered France in the early 2000s following two bloody wars against Russia. 

Around 30,000 Chechens in total escaped to France, many of them resettling in the suburbs of major cities such as Paris. 

Rodrigo Arenas, head of the parent teacher association at the Bois-d’Aulne College, in Conflans Sainte-Honorine, confirmed there had been a legal complaint by ‘an extremely angry father’ last Friday, after a cartoon of a nude Muhammad was shown in class.

Samuel P. had ‘invited Muslim students out of the classroom’ before showing a Charlie Hebdo caricature of the Prophet crouching with a star drawn on his buttocks and the inscription ‘A star is born’.

One young girl – thought to be Muslim – stayed behind by mistake, and later told her parents that she had been shown a picture of a naked man, and he was described as the Prophet.

The photo of Samuel P.’s severed head was posted on Twitter by the killer, before being quickly removed.

Next to it, Emmanuel Macron had been described as ‘the leader of the Infidels’ who ‘dared to belittle Mohammed’. 

Police on Friday arrived at the scene after receiving a call about a suspicious individual loitering near the school, a police source said.   

There they found the dead man and nearby sighted the suspect armed with a knife-like weapon, who threatened them as they tried to arrest him.

They opened fire and injured him severely, the source said. The man later died of his injuries, a judicial source said.

Before being shot, the teenager had posted a grisly video of the severed head on social media before being shot dead by police, AP reported. 

French anti-terror prosecutors confirmed they were investigating an assault in which a man was decapitated on the outskirts of Paris.  

‘The body of decapitated man was found at around 5.30 in the afternoon,’ said an investigating source. ‘When police arrived, the person thought to be responsible was still present and threatened them with his weapons.’

The unidentified killer then fled to the nearby town of Eragny-sur-Oise, around two miles away, where he refused to surrender.

‘He was waving a gun by this time and further threatened officers,’ said the source. ‘This is when he was shot dead by police.. Around ten shots were heard.’

Residents in the usually calm neighbourhood said they were shocked while pupils from the school, some accompanied by their parents, gathered in the street checking their phones for updates.

‘Nothing ever happens here,’ said Mohand Amara, who lives nearby, as he walked his dog not far from the school.

‘It makes me sad – decapitated, that’s shocking,’ said 15-year-old Virginie, who used to be the murdered teacher’s student and said she had ‘good memories’ of him.  

A parent of a pupil at the school said the teacher might have stirred ‘controversy’ by asking Muslim pupils to leave the room before showing the cartoons.

‘According to my son, he was super nice, super friendly, super kind,’ the parent, Nordine Chaouadi, told AFPTV.

The teacher ‘simply said to the Muslim children: “Leave, I don’t want it to hurt your feelings.” That’s what my son told me,’ the parent said. 

Anti-terrorist prosecutors immediately became investigating the incident, said the source, who said the attacker was being viewed as a ‘suspected terrorist’.  

Witnesses watched the man decapitating his unnamed victim – who was also male – in broad daylight, and close to a school.

Officers rushed to the scene after the alarm was raising, and watched the killer running away, towards Eragny.

By 7pm, the scene of the suspected murder, and the scene where the killer was himself gunned down, had been sealed off.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin was ‘making his way to the scene of the attack,’ said a spokesman for his ministry, who also confirmed as a terrorist enquiry.

A Twitter thread posted on Oct. 9 contained allegations that a history teacher in Conflans Sainte-Honorine had shown pupils cartoons purporting to depict the Prophet Mohammad.

The thread contained a video of a man who said his daughter, a Muslim, was one of the pupils in the class, and that she was shocked by the teacher’s actions. Reuters was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video. 

France’s parliament suspended Friday’s debate after news of the decapitation, with session president Hugues Renson, visibly moved, calling the attack ‘abominable’.

MPs stood as Renson said that ‘in the name of all of us, I want to honour the memory of the victim.’

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer tweeted: ‘The Republic is under attack.’

The attack follows a terrorism enquiry being launched in Paris last month after two news agency staff were stabbed outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo – the magazine where staff members were murdered in 2015 after publishing cartoons mocking the Prophet.

Those on trial range in age from 29 to 68, and are charged with providing logistics to the terrorists, including cash, weapons and vehicles.

Paris-born brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi murdered 12 people in the Charlie Hebdo offices using Kalashnikovs, before escaping in a stolen car, and later being killed by police.

A third terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly, gunned down four shoppers in a kosher supermarket and a policewoman during three days of carnage before he too was killed.

Charlie Hebdo now produces its magazine from a top secret location, and in September re-published the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed which had provoked outrage in the Muslim world. 

There have been a series of bomb, gun and knife attacks carried out by Islamic State and al-Qaeda operatives in France, dating back to early 2015

The deadliest single terrorist attack ever in the country came in November 2015 when 130 people were killed in Paris.

Suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIS targeted the Stade de France, cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue, where 90 died.

Earlier in the year, two Paris-born gunmen linked to Al-Qaeda broke into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, leaving 17 people dead inside and three outside.

In July 2016, 86 people were killed and more than 400 injured when a 19-tonne truck was deliberately driven into crowds on the seafront promenade at Nice, in the South of France.

The terrorist turned out to be a Tunisian immigrant who was shot dead by police.

During the same month, two Isis terrorists murdered an 86-year-old Catholic priest during a church service in Normandy.

There have been frequent knife attacks on the forces of law and order, leading to the deaths of serving police.

In October last year, a radicalised computer operative working at the Paris Prefecture in central Paris stabbed four of his colleagues to death.

The attacker – who was also shot dead – turned out to be a Muslim convert who kept extremist Al-Qaeda and Islamic State literature and images on his computer.