PARIS (Reuters) – A 20-year-old man suspected of stabbing a teacher to death and wounded three people at a French school has been placed under formal investigation for murder in connection with a terrorist organisation, the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said.
The main suspect in the Friday attack, known as Mohammed M, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said before the man was placed under investigation on Tuesday evening.
Mohammed M’s 16-year old brother was put under formal investigation for complicity in murder in relation with a terrorist organisation and their cousin was put investigation for voluntarily abstaining from preventing a crime, the office said in a statement on Wednesday.
Both brothers are being detained.
Following the killing of the teacher in the city of Arras, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said France was on its highest state of alert and the attack bore a link to events in the Middle East, where Israel is conducting a military offensive to root out Hamas fighters after militants killed 1,300 people in a rampage through Israeli towns on Oct. 7.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; editing by Robert Birsel)
