French teacher's killer buried in Chechnya amid tight security

A man walks through a square after snowfall as workers assemble a Christmas tree, with the main Mosque and skyscrapers in the background in downtown Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, Russia, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)

MOSCOW: A Russian man who was killed by French police after beheading teacher Samuel Paty in Paris in October was buried in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, Russian media reported.
Eighteen-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, a Russian of Chechen origin who had moved to Paris with his parents, was shot dead by French police after killing Paty, 47, in a Paris suburb.
Anzorov was spurred to act in response to a social media campaign denouncing the teacher's use of cartoons published by satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in a class on freedom of expression.
Amateur video distributed across the Telegram messaging platform showed dozens of men wearing heavy coats walking through snow, chanting and carrying a body shrouded in green cloth.
Sunday's funeral attended by some 200 people was held in the village of Shalazhi in the Urus-Martan district of Chechnya, the Caucasus Knot news website reported.
The village was closed by local security services except to local residents, while more than 60 law enforcement officers were on duty at the funeral, attended by friends and relatives, the website said.
"There are still traffic jams in neighbouring villages because of the large number of people who want to attend the funeral," a local Telegram channel said Sunday evening.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday the Kremlin did not have any information about the burial and described Paty's killing as an act of terror.
"We are talking about a murderer, we are talking about a terrorist. His actions are absolutely condemned and are unacceptable," Peskov said.
Paty's murder sparked a torrent of outrage that prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to crack down on Islamist extremism in a country that has suffered a series of jihadist attacks since 2015 that killed more than 250 people.
Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov in October accused Macron of provoking Muslims and compared the French leader to a "terrorist" for speaking in defence of Paty.