“It is unfortunately a name that we know well…” Mohammed M., the alleged perpetrator of the attack which left one dead and two injured in the Gambetta high school in Arras, had been the subject, since this summer, of of “active monitoring” on the part of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), learned 20 minutes to the intelligence services. According to our information, this monitoring was triggered following comments deemed “extremely worrying” made by the 20-year-old young man in recent months.
“He was wiretapped, was subject to multiple physical surveillance,” insists this source. The individual, on file S, had, just yesterday, been the subject of a check. “We knew that he was radicalized but there was no evidence to suggest that he was going to take action, neither in his conversations, nor in any preparatory act,” analyzes this source. Despite this close surveillance, no offense could be attributed to him. His criminal record was otherwise clean.
A teacher killed, a security guard seriously injured
Late this Friday morning, Mohammed M. repeatedly stabbed two teachers and a security guard who were trying to control him. One of the teachers died after receiving stab wounds to the throat and chest, the seriously injured security guard is still in absolute emergency. The third victim was more lightly injured. Witnesses heard him shout “Allahu Akbar”.
The assailant was arrested a few minutes later. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office quickly took up the facts, notably opening an investigation for “terrorist assassination” and “assassination attempts”. No students were injured. His brother, a minor, was arrested not far from another establishment in the city but was not armed. He was taken into custody, which is however the norm in this type of case. According to our information, he was unknown to the intelligence services.
The family was required to leave the territory in 2014
Mohammed M. was born in 2003 in Russia and still holds Russian nationality. His family, of Ingouche origin, arrived in France in 2008. According to our information, in February 2014, an obligation to leave the territory (OQTF) was issued to them. The couple and their five children – three boys and two girls – who had settled near Rennes boarded a plane at dawn heading for Roissy. The family then had to take a second plane which would take them back to Russia. But this expulsion led to a strong mobilization of Rennes associations and the family was finally taken at the last moment to an administrative detention center in the Paris region.
After a few months in Ile-de-France, the family settled in Arras and the children were educated in the Gambetta-Carnot school group. Did Mohammed M. know his victims? Did he choose them knowingly? The investigations, still in their infancy, have not been able to answer this question. The fact remains that according to several sources, he was educated in the establishment from middle school. His LinkedIn profile also indicates that he continued his studies in BTS in this same school group until last June. According to our information, the father of the family was deported in 2018. “Mohammed M. was not deportable,” specifies a source close to the case. He entered France before the age of 13 and therefore still benefits from absolute protection against deportation today. »
His older brother convicted in a terrorist case
But in the M. family, Mohammed is not the only one to be known to the intelligence services. His eldest, Mosvar, was sentenced in June to five years in detention for not having denounced a planned terrorist attack of which he was aware. The group is notably suspected of having considered “committing a massacre” at the Elysée after attacking a police patrol. Arrested in 2019 when he was still a minor, Mosvar however had a secondary role in this case.
Placed in pre-trial detention, he finally obtained his placement under judicial supervision in 2020. A relaxation quickly revoked a year later when the intelligence services realized that he continued to broadcast violent content, notably emanating from the Islamic State . He was sentenced in June 2023 to 18 months in prison for “apology of terrorism”. He is currently imprisoned.