PARIS • The man who decapitated a teacher in France for showing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in class had been in contact with a Russian-speaking Islamist militant in Syria, said a source close to the case.

Seven people have been charged with complicity after 18-year-old Chechen Abdullakh Anzorov killed Mr Samuel Paty last Friday, including two teenagers who helped him identify the teacher.

The identity of the terrorist militant in Syria has not yet been established, the source told Agence France-Presse (AFP) yesterday.

Le Parisien newspaper reported that Anzorov's presumed contact had been located through an IP address traced back to Idlib, a city in north-western Syria.

Separately, two women accused of stabbing two other females wearing Muslim headscarves near the Eiffel Tower in Paris and trying to rip off their veils have been charged with assault and making racist slurs, legal sources told AFP yesterday.

The two accused were drunk when they came across a group of Muslim women and children in the Champ de Mars park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

The Muslim family complained about the other women's dog, saying they felt threatened by it.

In the ensuing row, one of the accused pulled out a knife and stabbed two of the veiled women, aged 19 and 40.

The 40-year-old woman sustained six stab wounds and is being treated in hospital for a perforated lung.

The younger victim was stabbed three times and was also treated in hospital but has since been discharged.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE