After the attack on October 13, which cost the life of French teacher Dominique Bernard, stabbed in front of his middle school by Mohammed Mogouchkov, the latter’s mother asked to become a civil party.
Her request rejected, she appealed. In the meantime, she was heard “as a witness and therefore without a lawyer”, which her counsel Mr Mikaël Benillouche “regrets”, contacted by AFP. His hearing, which lasted nearly four hours, followed the interrogations in November of Mohammed Mogouchkov, a 20-year-old Russian from Ingushetia, and his younger brother, as well as their cousin, aged 15, in December – the three being indicted.
Heavy artillery in the cellar of the family home
Since the start of the investigations, the attacker’s entourage has concerned investigators, who found an airsoft replica of an assault rifle and two magazines, two katanas (Japanese swords), a gas pistol and a hunting knife in the cellar of the family home.
Placed in police custody following the attack, then released without prosecution, the mother told the police that she had never seen a weapon in her home or on Mohammed, according to a police summary dated October 17 of which AFP has become aware. She had indicated that she had discovered a knife in her young son’s bedroom a few days before the attack, and had hidden it.
She also confided that she had “religiously divorced” from her husband, Yaqoub Mogouchkov, out of a “taste for modern life” and described a “control” of her ex-husband over her son Mohammed.
Listed for Islamist radicalization since February 2021
File S for Islamist radicalization, the father was expelled from France in 2018 to Russia where he stayed for a year. At the end of October, he told AFP from Armenia that he condemned his son’s actions, blaming his ex-wife for not having “succeeded in controlling the children”. Mohammed Mogouchkov, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, had been listed for Islamist radicalization since February 2021 after a report from National Education.
His brother, aged 16 and indicted in particular for complicity in assassination, had explained to investigators that Mohammed had asked him questions, “a few weeks before the attack”, about handling knives and cutting throats. And the day before, Mohammed had announced to him that it was “the last time” that they would see each other, giving him “a date in a better world”.