Seven people have been handed over to a judge overnight for the opening of a judicial investigation and possible indictments in the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty. Two are minors.

An 18-year-old pupil of Chechen origin had beheaded Paty last week outside his school in a Paris suburb. He was shot dead by police. The killing had followed Paty’s showing of derogatory caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed (Peace be Upon Him) to a class of thirteen-year old’s. The caricatures were used in a lesson on so called ‘freedom of expression’.

Euro News reports that a parent of one of the pupils at the school who had posted a video accusing the teacher of using the caricatures in class was among the seven presented to the judge. The father of a schoolgirl had launched an online call for “mobilization” against Paty and sought his dismissal from the school.

18-year-old Aboulakh Anzorov, had apparently approached pupils outside the school asked them to identify Paty as he left for home. Euro News reports two of those pupils were among those presented to the judge. The Cheikh Yassine Collective’s Abdelhakim Sefrioui was also among them. The closure of the Collective could be decided later on Wednesday. A mosque in Paris has already been closed down for six months for allegedly having shared a video of the teachers beheading.

French President Emmanuel Macron said, “Decisions of this type against associations, groups of individuals, will follow in the coming days and weeks.”

Umm Muhammed Umar