The author of the knife attack which killed a teacher in a high school in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) published a protest video before taking action, Agence France-Presse learned ( AFP), Tuesday October 17, from a source close to the matter, confirming information from CNews.
In this video, Mohammed Mogouchkov, of Russian nationality, 20 years old and on file for Islamist radicalization, claims his action in the name of the Islamic State (IS) organization, the same source added. He also makes a “very marginal” allusion to the Hamas attack in Israel, it was clarified.
After ninety-six hours in police custody in the investigation opened by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) for assassination and attempted assassination, Mohammed Mogouchkov must be presented on Tuesday to an anti-terrorism investigating judge for a indictment.
Update on the investigation
Eleven people were in custody at the anti-terrorist sub-directorate of the judicial police (SDAT) and the general directorate of internal security (DGSI) on Monday morning, according to a police source. Among those held in custody is the attacker, Mohammed Mogouchkov, 20, arrested for radicalism.
Three police custody orders were lifted during the day on Monday, according to the same source. No information was given on the number of suspects who could be presented to an anti-terrorism magistrate on Tuesday.
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, will hold a press conference at the Paris judicial court on Tuesday at 2 p.m. to provide an update on the investigation.
No link between the assassination and the mobilization of associations
Cimade on Tuesday refuted any link between the knife assassination of a teacher on Friday in Arras and the mobilization of associations, ten years ago, against the expulsion of the family of the attacker Mohammed Mogouchkov.
“Several political and media leaders, far-right or not, have questioned the associations and local elected officials mobilized in 2014 against the expulsion of the family of the alleged killer from Arras,” writes the rights defense association foreigners in a press release. She “refuses to make the link between this tragedy and the mobilization that took place ten years ago in the name of respecting the rights of a family.”
The family of Mohammed Mogouchkov arrived in France in 2008. That is to say at the age of 5 for the author of the attack, born in 2003 in Malgobek, in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, neighboring Chechnya and with a majority Muslim.
The family quickly settled near Rennes. Their request for asylum having been refused, in 2014 they were the subject of a collective expulsion procedure to Russia, against which numerous associations for the defense of foreigners, including Cimade, and communist activists, opposed were mobilized.
On Monday, a small ultra-right group claimed to have vandalized the gate of a Communist Party office in Rennes, accusing it of supporting “Islamist assassins” after the attack in Arras. Cimade also refutes “the presupposition of an automatic link between foreign people, delinquency and terrorism”.