Luca Rocco Magnotta allegedly filmed himself killing and dismembering an acquaintance.

Story highlights

Montreal school suspends teacher, is investigating incident

Video allegedly shows Luka Magnotta performing sexual acts on body parts

Teacher reportedly showed video as part of daily current events discussion

CNN  — 

A Montreal teacher has been suspended for showing his 10th grade students the killing and dismemberment video allegedly filmed by Canadian gay porn actor Luka Magnotta, the school board said on Wednesday

The class viewing allegedly took place on the morning of June 4, the same day German authorities captured Magnotta in a Berlin Internet café, ending an international manhunt for the suspected killer. Jun Lin, a 33-year-old student at Montreal’s Concordia University, was killed in late May in one of the city’s grisliest crimes in years.

Police say they believe Magnotta killed and dismembered Lin and posted a 10-minute video of the slaying online. Montreal police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said the video shows Magnotta engaged in sexual acts involving body parts and included evidence of cannibalism.

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“At the beginning of class each day, history teachers from the school talk about actuality, what happens around Montreal, and that was part of the actuality that day, so he wanted to talk about it, and kids said that they wanted to watch it, so basically he just did what the kids wanted to do,” student Carole-Anne Bouchard-Giroux told CNN affiliate CTV.

One of the vice principals at Cavelier-De LaSalle High School in Montreal overheard two students speaking between classes shortly after the incident, school board representative Jean-Michel Nahas said. The vice principal spoke to several students and decided during lunch to immediately suspend the teacher and launch an investigation. Around 20 students viewed the video, and at least six students sought help from a crisis team of psychologists and counselors that was made available to students after the incident, Nahas said.

The 29-year-old suspended teacher wrote the vice principal an e-mail later in the day apologizing for his actions and was “sorry for all the damages that could have been caused by the video,” Nahas said. Nahas said the school board is not releasing the teacher’s name because of the ongoing investigation.

Nahas said he still wasn’t sure how the teacher was technically capable of showing the video. “There are many filters on the computers at the school and when we tried to view it ourselves, we were not able to,” he said. “It was impossible to view it [over the school Internet connection] so we don’t know how he was even able to.”

Additional psychologists and counselors were made available to students again Wednesday because of the sudden media attention.

The suspended teacher met with the school board Wednesday afternoon in Montreal. The board wants to know “why he did it, if he has any justification of it, and what he has to say about it,” Nahas said while the meeting was in progress.

A statement released after the meeting said the board met with the teacher, who presented his version of events. The school board will investigate further before deciding the fate of the teacher, the release said. The school and the board “reiterate that this is an unconscionable act for which all consequences are considered, up to dismissal of the teacher,” the release said.

The teacher is suspended with pay pending completion of the board’s investigation.

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