French teacher’s killer buried in Chechnya at closed funeral

MOSCOW: A Russian man who was killed by French police after beheading teacher Samuel Paty in Paris in October was buried Sunday in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, Russian media reported.
Eighteen-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, a Russian of Chechen origin who had moved to Paris with his parents, was shot dead by French law enforcement after decapitating Paty, 47, in a Paris suburb.
Anzorov was spurred to act in response to a social media campaign denouncing the teacher’s use of cartoons published by satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in a class on freedom of expression.
Amateur video distributed across the Telegram messaging platform showed dozens of men wearing heavy coats walking through snow, chanting and carrying a body shrouded in green cloth.
The funeral attended by some 200 people was held in the village of Shalazhi in the Urus-Martan district of Chechnya, the Caucasus Knot news website reported.
The village was closed by local security services except to family members and more than 60 law enforcement officers were present among the mourners, the website said.
“There are still traffic jams in neighboring villages because of the large number of people who want to attend the funeral,” a local Telegram channel said Sunday evening.
Paty’s murder sparked a torrent of outrage that prompted President Emmanuel Macron to crack down on Islamist extremism in a country that suffered a series of militant attacks since 2015 that killed more than 250 people.
Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov in October accused Macron of provoking Muslims and compared the French leader to a “terrorist” for speaking in defense of Paty.

French teacher’s killer buried in Chechnya at closed funeral