France will prosecute seven people over last week's beheading of a history teacher, including two teenagers accused of pointing him out to his killer, anti-terror authorities said on Wednesday as the nation prepared to pay homage to the dead educator.
Anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said the children -- aged 14 and 15 -- were in a group who shared 300-350 euros ($356-$414) offered by the killer to help find teacher Samuel Paty.
The two stayed with the killer, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov originally from Chechnya, for more than two hours waiting for the 47-year-old father of one, targeted for having shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed in a civics class discussion on free speech early this month.
Paty became the subject of an online hate campaign over his choice of lesson material -- the same images which unleashed a bloody assault by Islamist gunmen on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo five years ago.
A trial opened in Paris last month for complicity in that attack, which claimed the lives of 12 people including cartoonists and was the opening shot in a string of terror attacks that killed dozens of people.
French President Emmanuel Macron is to attend a ceremony in Paty's honour later on Wednesday, as the government intensifies a crackdown on radical Islam.
Macron will give the country's highest civilian award, the Legion of Honour, to Paty, who was attacked on his way home from the junior high school where he taught in the suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine outside Paris.
Ricard said Anzorov had offered pupils at Paty's school money to help him find the teacher as he did not know what Paty looked like.
The prosecutor said the two accused youngsters had stayed with Anzorov even after he told them he wanted to "humiliate and strike" Paty over the Mohamed caricatures, seen as offensive by many Muslims.
'Fatwa'
Anzorov decapitated Paty with a knife and tweeted an image of the teacher's severed head on Twitter before he was shot dead by police. Many of Paty's pupils saw the disturbing image online.
The two teenagers are among seven people who will face prosecution for "conspiracy to commit a terrorist murder", said Ricard.
The others include the father of one of Paty's pupils, who started the social media campaign against the teacher even though his daughter was not in class when the cartoons were shown, said the prosecutor.
The father had exchanged messages with Anzorov via WhatsApp in the days leading up to the murder.
A fourth suspect is a known Islamist radical who helped the father in his campaign.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has accused the two men of having issued a "fatwa" against Paty.
Three of Anzorov's friends complete the suspect list, one of whom allegedly drove him to the scene of the crime while another accompanied him to purchase a weapon.
Police have carried out dozens of raids since the crime, while the government has ordered the six-month closure of a mosque outside Paris and dissolved the Sheikh Yassin Collective, a group they said supported Hamas.
The Palestinian militant group said on Wednesday it had "no links" with the French organisation founded by Abdelhakim Sefrioui -- the Islamist radical in custody over Paty's murder.
The French government has earmarked for dissolution more than 50 other organisations it accuses of having links to radical Islam.
"Our fellow citizens expect actions," Macron said on Tuesday.
French solidarity
On Wednesday evening, the president will address an official memorial with Paty's family and some 400 guests at the Sorbonne university in Paris.
Paty's beheading was the second knife attack in the name of avenging the Prophet Mohammed since the Charlie Hebdo trial started last month.
The killing has prompted an outpouring of emotion and solidarity in France, with tens of thousands taking part in rallies countrywide over the weekend.
Thousands more took part in a silent march in the teacher's honour in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on Tuesday.
France's sports ministry said on Wednesday that participants in all professional sporting events this weekend -- football, basketball, handball, rugby and ice hockey and volleyball -- would observe a pre-match minute of silence for Paty, and wear black armbands for matches scheduled for next week.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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