(Reuters) Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb, was described by his pupils and their parents as caring and professional. But he was killed after becoming the target of an angry campaign on social media.
Paty, 47, was killed on Friday by an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin. Prosecutors said the attacker, shot dead by police soon after, wanted to punish the teacher for showing his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics class on freedom of expression earlier this month.
Parents said they were mystified how the civics class could have escalated into a motive for a gruesome murder.
