The funeral for Islamist terrorist Abdulzakh Anzorov was held in his native Chechnya over the weekend and the event saw the murderer of French teacher Samuel Paty apparently celebrated as a hero by locals.
The funeral saw a procession of dozens of locals at the village of Shalazhi on Sunday, with many chanting “Allahu Akbar!” as a crowd of around 200 people, including relatives of the dead terrorist, gathered to bury the teen who had been living in France as a refugee.
Local media reported that the body of the terrorist was welcomed like a hero stating that there were, “traffic jams in neighbouring villages because of the large number of people who want to attend the funeral,” French magazine Marianne reports.
Few videos of the funeral have been posted on social media according to the magazine, due to the heavy presence of soldiers who were allegedly confiscating the mobile phones of anyone who filmed the event. The French magazine nevertheless cited footage published by Russian Telegram-based news agency Baza showing the funeral procession and the huge crowd it attracted.
Salman Magamadov, the head of the village of Shalazhi, denied there had been a military presence at the funeral at all, saying that some measures were in place to stop the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus but they had existed prior to the funeral.
Magamadov also denied he had helped the family of the terrorist repatriate his body, which travelled from France and through Turkey before reaching Chechnya.
Reports have also claimed that a street in the village was unofficially named after Anzorov to celebrate his actions.
Anzorov was shot dead in October after beheading 47-year-old French teacher Samuel Paty in the street outside his own school. Paty had shown cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed to his class that had been previously published by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo as part of a lesson on the history of freedom of speech.
According to reports, the Chechen teen had paid cash to students at the school where Paty worked to help identify the teacher before he killed him. He was also said to have been in direct contact with Brahim Chninam, the father of one of the students at Paty’s school who had launched a social media campaign against Paty.
Following the terrorist attack, Chninam was arrested along with radical Islamist Abdelhakim Sefrioui who also contributed to the social media campaign.