The mother of a man who killed a teacher in France says he was radicalized by his father

On October 13, 20-year-old Mohamed Mogučkov stabbed his former teacher Dominique Bernard with a knife in the city of Arras.

In an interview broadcast on M6 late on Thursday, the mother, who has not been named, said it was the father who influenced the couple’s five children, three boys and two girls.

Father Jakub Mogučkov was put on the police watch list for Islamist radicalism. He was sent to Russia in 2018 and now lives in Armenia.

“He got them, especially the boys, involved in religion,” the mother said.

“I’m far from religion and he told me I’m an infidel,” she said, adding that he abused her and her daughters.

She said her son, who was also on a watch list for radicalization before the attack, was in constant contact with his father and people who acted as “father substitutes” in their home.

Three of her sons are currently in prison. The chief of them was found guilty earlier this year of planning an attack on the Elysée Palace in Paris.

Mohamed’s 16-year-old younger brother has been charged with involvement in the attack in Arras.

Mogučkov’s father spoke to AFP by phone from Armenia last week and said he condemned his son’s actions.

But he also said France was pursuing a “policy of provocation over cartoons of Muhammad,” possibly referring to the magazine Charlie Hebdo, which was attacked by armed Islamists in 2015, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Mr. Mogučkov said his ex-wife failed to control the children and blamed her for their son’s “mental state, [kuri] did not develop in the right direction”.

Bernard, 57, was killed almost three years after a radicalized youth killed teacher Samuel Paty outside a school in a Paris suburb.

Both murders were carried out by people from Russia’s predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region.

Mr. Mogučkov was arrested at the scene of the attack and is awaiting trial.