Two students received money from the terrorist to identify the professor who was beheaded in France

Flowers at the entrance of the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine school where Samuel Paty taught, this Tuesday.JULIEN DE ROSA / EFE

It was students from a secondary school in the French municipality of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine who, last Friday, and in exchange for money, helped the terrorist Abdouallakh Anzorov locate Samuel Paty, the teacher who had spoken in class about freedom of expression and he had shown the cartoons of Muhammad published by the weekly

.

With this information, the attacker, 18, chased Paty, 47. He attacked her with a 35-centimeter knife.

And he beheaded him.

Seven people, including two students aged 14 and 15, have appeared on Wednesday before the investigating judge who could charge them with alleged complicity in a terrorist murder.

The gestation of the latest Islamist attack to hit France begins to clear up after four days of interrogation.

Of the 16 people questioned, nine - including relatives of the terrorist, who was shot dead by police - have been released without charge.

The antiterrorist prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, has detailed in a statement without questions the link between the beheading and the previous campaign against Paty orchestrated by the father of a student and by a radical preacher, both also arrested and investigated.

The prosecutor has related how several students at the Collège du Bois-D'Aulne, where Paty taught history and geography and civic instruction, cooperated with the murderer, perhaps without gauging the consequences of his indiscretion and greed.

Ricard explained that the terrorist, who lives in Évreux, 80 kilometers from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, knew the name of the teacher and the school's address thanks to the videos released by the student's father.

But he did not know what he looked like.

"Identification could only be possible thanks to the intervention of the school students," said the prosecutor.

Anzorov stood at around 2:00 p.m. on October 16 at the Collège du Bois-D'Aulne, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, 35 kilometers from Paris.

He approached a student and offered him between 300 and 350 euros, according to Ricard, for information about the teacher.

He gave him part of the money and promised the rest for when he had identified it.

Around 4:00 pm, other students joined the group;

some left.

The terrorist told them that he wanted to demand that Paty apologize, and also humiliate and beat him, according to Ricard.

Shortly before 5:00 p.m., they saw the future victim and indicated it to Anzorov, data that allowed him to commit the crime.

The investigation has established that, in the days prior to the event, the terrorist was in contact with the student's father and that three friends of Anzorov - also detained - accompanied him to buy the weapons he was carrying at the time of the attack or They transferred him to the scene of the crime.

An investigation has been opened for the nine people who have been brought to justice for complicity with murder in relation to a terrorist act, complicity in an attempted murder of a law enforcement officer in relation to a terrorist act, and association of terrorist criminals to commit a crime against people.

Beyond the role of the students, Prosecutor Ricard's conclusions point to the connection between apparently peaceful Islamist agitators and terrorists who, inspired by his words, decide to take action.

This magma, in which radical activism leads to violent jihadism, is what is now on the target of President Emmanuel Macron, who has asked his ministers for “concrete actions”.

The state machinery has been put into operation.

But legal obstacles can delay the adoption of the most striking measures that the government wants, such as the dissolution of the influential Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) or the NGO Baraka City.

Dissolution of the Sheque Yasín group

The Council of Ministers has decided on Wednesday the dissolution of a group that received the name Sheik Yasín.

It was led by the preacher who helped the father of a student in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine to launch the campaign on social media against the beheaded teacher.

This group, without legal association status, promoted an "anti-republican ideology that spread hatred," according to government spokesman Gabriel Attal.

The Government has also ordered the closure of the Pantin mosque, whose officials released the videos of the father against the teacher.

Attal confirmed the start of the expulsion procedure for some 230 radicalized foreigners.