An 18-year-old has been being fingered as a suspect in the killing of a French teacher. The teacher had recently shown students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed (Peace be Upon Him). He was beheaded outside the school he worked at, on Friday.

Al Jazeerah reports that he teenager was born in Moscow but is of Chechen origin. He was shot by police and later died of his injuries. Police said he was armed with a knife and an airsoft gun. He was shot about 600 meters away from where the schoolteacher was killed.

French President Emmanuel Macron has labelled the incident as an “Islamist terrorist attack “and an anti-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation into it. The teachers killing is to be treated  as “a murder linked to a terrorist organization” and related to a “criminal association with terrorists”.

According to Al Jazeerah, nine people in total have been detained in connection with the incident. This includes the parents of a child at the school. One of the parents had filed a complaint against the teacher, indicating disapproval at him showing the caricatures to the pupils. While none of those detained were family of the suspect, all had reportedly been connected to him.

Macron said, “One of our citizens was assassinated today because he was teaching, because he was teaching pupils freedom of expression.” The derogatory caricatures are viewed as blasphemous by Muslims. They had recently been revived by the Charlie Hebdo magazine, triggering an attack outside it’s former offices. The magazine’s current location is being kept hidden.

Umm Muhammed Umar