It has been almost a year to the day since Professor Dominique Bernard was killed in Arras, in Pas-de-Calais. His assailant, Mohammed Mogouchkov, wrote an eight-page poem shortly after his incarceration, we learned this Thursday.
On October 13, 2023, Mohammed Mogouchkov, a young Chechen who had pledged allegiance to Daesh, went to his former high school in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) and stabbed one of his ex-teachers there.
It was Dominique Bernard, 57 years old, French teacher. During his attack, the terrorist also injured a PE teacher and two employees of the school.
The attacker was arrested, then indicted and placed in detention. In the days following his incarceration, this young man, now aged 21, wrote an eight-page poem, consulted by AFP this Thursday, October 10.
Through his accusatory rhymes, Mohammed Mogouchkov poured out his “hatred” towards the “atheists” (sic) who, according to him, have “denied” the Earth and “squatted” its “mountains”, its “rivers” , its “palm trees”.
In this same poem, Mohammed Mogouchkov returned to the assassination of Dominique Bernard, who embodied, according to him, the “love” of France, before attacking the investigators.
“Call your imam, so he can deradicalize me. Lol, he tried. Let him try to extinguish the light of Allah in me. I have light on all levels, and I’m not talking about your lights, writers, whose ink has darkened (sic) the heart of this French teacher, Dominique Bernard, it’s him I was targeting “, he wrote.
During the investigation, Mohammed Mogouchkov repeated that he had acted alone, developing a plan “one to three weeks” before he took action. In his long poem, the terrorist affirms that “it is Allah, He alone, who sponsored me. (…) The Koran, so warm, it warmed me, its pages, its verses (sic).”
An “omnipotent” positioning
Even more, the attacker also attacks the symbols of France through his lines. “And Marianne, how beautiful she is! But how is it sacred?”, he writes, expressing indignation that “the herd”, which “squats” (sic) the Earth, “dares to legislate”.
“The swimming pool and its nudity, at school and SVT, plastic penises were given to us, in class, in complete diversity,” he adds.
According to a psychologist who assessed him, Mohammed Mogouchkov is immersed in a “self-justified claim”. The individual would experience the expulsion of his father, also listed as S for radicalization, from France in 2008 as a “traumatic event”, which occurred “while he was attending the Arras high school”, “a place where he therefore organized subsequently his action”.
In general, “we note today a self-justified and theorized claim of these acts”, analyzed the psychologist several months later, after having assessed the young man, with a “vengeful and persecutory tone”.
The attacker “could benefit from psychological monitoring” but his “omnipotent” positioning makes him “still very inaccessible”, regretted this expert.
