Arras: the attacker, his little brother and his cousin presented to an anti-terrorism judge

The assailant who killed a teacher in a middle school in Arras on Friday, Mohammed Mogouchkov, his 16-year-old little brother and “a young cousin” will be presented to an anti-terrorism investigating judge, the anti-terrorism prosecutor announced on Tuesday Jean-François Ricard. The prosecution requested indictment and pre-trial detention for the 20-year-old assailant and his 16-year-old brother, suspected of having “provided some support in his deadly project”, particularly regarding “the handling of knives” , explained Jean-François Ricard.

The prosecution also requests the indictment of the “young cousin of these siblings”, aged fifteen, “having been informed of a possible criminal action plan by Mohammed Mogouchkov” and suspected of having “done nothing for the ‘to prevent”. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) opens a judicial investigation for criminal terrorist association, assassination in relation to a terrorist enterprise, complicity in these last two crimes and voluntary abstention from preventing the commission of a crime. Since Friday, 100 witnesses have been heard and 13 people have been taken into custody, said the Pnat.

“Short video filmed in front of the war memorial”

Ten police detentions which concerned his “close family circle” or his “relationships”, with a detainee in particular, were “lifted during the flagrant investigation in the absence of elements, at this stage, allowing demonstrating that these arrested people could have had a specific role in the terrorist action of Mohammed Mogouchkov”. The motivations of the attacker, who had at length “pledged allegiance to the Islamic State” in an audio file, “could be clarified by the statements of some of his relatives, by the remarks made by himself on the spot and by a video taken in front of a war memorial” before the attack, said the prosecutor.

In a “short video shot in front of the war memorial”, the attacker “repeatedly attacked the ‘values ​​of the French’ in his own words”, in “particularly threatening remarks”, indicated the prosecutor. Dominique Bernard, a 57-year-old literature professor, stabbed “in the neck and shoulder”, has died. According to the prosecutor, the vital prognosis of the three other injured victims “is no longer in jeopardy to this day”.