A 16-year-old high school student was arrested Sunday in Lure (Haute-Saône) and placed in police custody, after posting a message on a social network defending terrorism, the Vesoul prosecutor's office announced on Monday, October 26.
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"Any disbeliever wishing to smear Islam deserves to suffer the same fate as Mr. Paty Allahou Akbar", he is suspected of having written on a social network on October 20, four days after the assassination of Samuel Paty in an attack in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines).
"The high school student recognized the facts," said Vesoul's prosecutor, Emmanuel Dupic, without specifying the social network on which this message was posted.
“We now know that any message posted on the internet can be followed up.
We therefore need a systematic repression of this type of message, ”he argued.
The young man is "unknown" to the police and justice services.
"It appears that this is a person who has converted and who is radicalized, but who does not come from a Muslim background," he said.
A Koran and computer equipment were seized by the gendarmes.
Facts punishable by 7 years in prison
The young man must be presented Tuesday to an examining magistrate as part of a judicial investigation which will be opened for "apology of terrorism and direct provocation to an act of terrorism", facts punishable by 7 years of imprisonment, a indicated Emmanuel Dupic.
"The purpose of this judicial information is to identify people who could have exchanged similar words," he continued.
To read also: Guillaume Tabard: "Homage to Samuel Paty, from the Republic to the nation"
The investigation was entrusted to the gendarmes of the Besançon research section, in coordination with the Lure research brigade.
It should also make it possible to determine the young man's level of radicalization.
The message had been detected and reported to the prosecution by the gendarmes of the N'Tech service in Belfort, specialized in the fight against cybercrime.
Friday, a student was sentenced by the criminal court of Besançon to 4 months suspended sentence for "apologia for terrorism".
She had posted a message on Facebook claiming that Samuel Paty "deserved" to die.
Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was beheaded on October 16, ten days after showing his 4th year students caricatures of Muhammad during a free speech class.
He had been the target of social networks and online mobilization.
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