A Chechen refugee accused of stabbing to death a teacher in France had declared his allegiance to ISIS before the “day of jihad” attack, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Mohammed Mogouchkov, 20, recorded audio and video on his phone before the knife attack at his former school Friday that also injured three other people, according to French anti-terror prosecutor Jean-François Ricard.
In the audio clip, he declared allegiance to ISIS — and conveyed “his hatred for France, for the French, for democracy and the education he benefitted from in our country,” Ricard said.
Speaking in Arabic, Mogouchkov — who allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” during the deadly stabbing spree — also expressed support for Muslims in Iraq, Asia and the Palestinian territories, the prosecutor said.
He made a “very marginal” reference to Hamas terrorists’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but did not directly link it to Friday’s school stabbing, Ricard said.
Mogouchkov, who was born in Russia and came to live in France as a refugee in 2008, also recorded a 30-second video of himself in front of a war memorial soon before Friday’s attack at Gambetta-Carnot School in the northern city of Arras.
In that video, the suspect “repeatedly attacked, in his own words, the values of the French. He expressed some particularly threatening views,” the prosecutor said.
Video footage filmed from afar then caught the attack when French language teacher Dominique Bernard, 57, was stabbed to death outside the school on a day a former Hamas leader ordered as a “day of jihad.”
Mogouchkov and two of his family members, including his 16-year-old brother and a cousin, are now being held on terrorism-related charges, Ricard said.
His brother is accused of giving “a certain amount of support” for the school attack, of being aware of Mogouchkov’s radicalization and of advising him how to handle knives, the prosecutor said.
The cousin was allegedly aware that a crime was possibly being planned but apparently did nothing to stop it, said Ricard.
Friday’s deadly attack in Arras prompted France to raise its terror alert level and deploy 7,000 troops to boost security across the country following a string of bomb threats targeting the Louvre in Paris and the Palace of Versailles.
Police detained a total of 13 people for questioning in the investigation since last Friday but 10 of those have been cleared of any wrongdoing for now, the prosecutor said.
The school in Arras where the deadly stabbing occurred was evacuated Monday in response to a bomb hoax.
Mogouchkov and his relatives were expected to appear before an anti-terrorism judge in Paris later Tuesday to be formally charged.
With Post wires