A teenage jihadist who beheaded a teacher last week in France was in contact with the parent behind an online hate campaign against the teacher, police on Tuesday October 20 revealed.
The teacher, Samuel Paty, 47, (pictured above) was beheaded outside his school near Paris after showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a lesson on free speech.
Brahim Chnina, father of a 13-year-old pupil of the school who found out about the teacher’s lessons, posted a video on social media earlier this month calling the teacher a “thug” and demanding he be sacked.
He also repeated his demands at a meeting with the headteacher as he was accompanied by a radical islamic preacher who is on France’s terror watchlist.
Brahim then posted another online message on Facebook, this time calling out Paty and the school where he worked.
According to Police, they believe 18 year old refugee Abdoullakh Anzorov after seeing the online message, travelled 50 miles from his home in Normandy to commit the atrocity.
Police sources on Tuesday October 20, told Reuters the gun-toting teenager messaged the pupil’s father before he decapitated Mr Paty with a kitchen knife.
Other reports from France say Brahim had exchanged WhatsApp messages with the killer in the days before the murder.
Brahim and preacher Abdelhakim Sefraoui were among 16 people arrested over the murder.
The murder which happened in Paris commuter belt town Conflans Saint-Honorine on Friday October 16, sparked online outrage across France.
Thousands marched in support of free speech on Sunday, carrying placards that declared #JeSuisSamuel and #JeSuisProf in an echo of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack of 2015.
Public figures called the murder an assault on French values, and Paty is to posthumously receive France’s highest award, the Legion d’Honneur.
France Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin speaking over the weekend said Mr Chnina and Mr Sefraoui had “launched a fatwa” against the teacher.
French Authorities also ordered the closure of the Paris suburb mosque that shared the Facebook hate video against Mr Paty.
One of the people arrested was reportedly a man who surrendered to police after he had been in contact with the killer for the past few weeks.
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