The alleged murderer of a professor in Arras, in the north of France, had posted a video of demands on behalf of the armed group Islamic State (IS) and mentioned in a “very marginal” manner the conflict between Israel and Hamas, before to take action, we learned on Tuesday from a source close to the matter.
The author, Mohammed Mogouchkov, 20 years old, of Russian nationality and originally from Ingushetia, in the North Caucasus, was listed for radicalism.
He must be presented to an anti-terrorism investigating judge on Tuesday, four days after his attack which plunged France back into fear in the face of jihadist attacks, further fueled by another attack Monday evening in Brussels which left two dead.
Mohammed Mogouchkov claimed responsibility for his actions on behalf of the Islamic State jihadist group in a video posted before the attack, we learned on Tuesday from a source close to the matter.
He also makes a “very marginal” allusion to the Hamas attack in Israel, according to this source.
Friday morning, armed with a knife, he went to his former school in Arras, where he fatally stabbed Dominique Bernard, a 57-year-old French teacher, then injured three other people before being arrested by a police patrol.
Mohammed Mogouchkov was followed by the DGSI (internal security) “since the end of July”, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, through wiretapping and physical surveillance measures.
He had been checked on Thursday, the day before the events, without “any offense being able to be blamed on him”, according to an intelligence source.
During his custody, he “did not explain himself,” said a police source.
This attack, committed three years after the assassination by a radicalized Islamist who had slit the throat of professor Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the Paris region, once again struck fear, particularly among teachers.
France was immediately placed in an “attack emergency” situation, the highest level of the Vigipirate vigilance and protection system.
“All European states are vulnerable” in the face of the return of “Islamist terrorism,” Emmanuel Macron declared on Tuesday.
Other countries fear terrorist acts, particularly in response to the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
Two Swedes were killed Monday evening in the street in Brussels during an attack whose alleged perpetrator, a radicalized Tunisian residing illegally in Belgium, was fatally injured on Tuesday by the police.
Two of the Arras attacker’s brothers were also taken into custody: his younger brother, aged 17, who was near another school in the town, but without a weapon, and his eldest, currently incarcerated.
The latter was sentenced to five years of imprisonment, in 2023, for not having denounced a planned attack in Paris near the Élysée presidential palace. He was later convicted of advocating terrorism.
Mohammed Mogouchkov, born in the predominantly Muslim Russian Republic of Ingushetia, arrived in France in 2008. He was the subject of surveillance by the intelligence services because of his links with his older brother.
The father of the attacker, deported in 2018, “was a supporter of radical Islam” and listed as such by the police, according to the Minister of the Interior.
Portrayed as “violent”
His sister, whose police custody was lifted on Monday, “is horrified by the actions of her brothers” and “she does not understand why her brother attacked this college,” Mikaël Benillouche told AFP , his lawyer, contacted by AFP.
Before investigators, she described having “seen her brother Mohammed becoming more and more harsh in his practice of Islam” and portrayed him as “violent”, according to her counsel.
Friday, quickly after the events, the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for assassination and attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise and criminal terrorist association.
President Emmanuel Macron promised Monday that the school would remain a “bulwark against obscurantism”. On Tuesday, he said he had not seen any “failures” in the French security services.
He will attend the funeral of Dominique Bernard at Arras Cathedral on Thursday.