A history teacher who showed his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class was beheaded near his school in a Paris suburb on Friday by a suspected Islamist terrorist who shouted “Allahu Akbar”, police said. Alerted by local residents, police confronted and shot dead a man armed with a kitchen knife and an air gun who refused to drop his weapons and surrender, and threatened them. Minutes later, officers found the body of 47-year-old Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher. A bomb disposal unit was called in to check whether the presumed assailant was wearing a suicide vest or belt. Witnesses told police they heard the assailant shouting “Allahu Akbar” [‘God is the greatest’ in Arabic], police sources said. The teacher had received death threats after giving a class on freedom of expression, during which he showed pupils the controversial cartoons, a police source said. The presumed killer was reported to be an 18-year-old Chechen, the sources said.
