AFPEight individuals accused of aiding and abetting the jihadist homicide of French instructor Samuel Paty will know their destiny after a six-week trial in a Paris court docket.
Among them is the daddy of a pupil, whose lie about Paty’s alleged discrimination towards Muslims within the classroom set off the chain of occasions that led to her beheading on a avenue in October 2020.
Also on trial are a Muslim activist who led an internet marketing campaign towards Paty, two childhood mates of Chechen killer Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped him purchase weapons and 4 radicalized males with whom he exchanged messages on social media.
Anzorov was killed by police minutes after killing the 47-year-old historical past and geography instructor exterior his secondary college within the Paris suburb of Conflans-Saint-Honorine.
He was infuriated by claims circulating on the Internet that a couple of days earlier Paty had ordered Muslims to go away his class of 13-year-olds earlier than revealing obscene pictures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Paty, the truth is, was holding a lesson on freedom of speech and, earlier than exhibiting one of many controversial pictures printed for the primary time by Charlie Hebdo journal, suggested the scholars to look away in the event that they feared being offended.
The pupil, named Z. Chnina, wasn’t even at school when it occurred, however advised her father that she was being punished for elevating an objection.
The trial centered on authorized arguments over whether or not individuals who had no prior data of the assault – or in some circumstances not even its perpetrator – may nonetheless, of their phrases, be responsible of “terrorist affiliation”.
Summing up in court docket this week, prosecuting legal professionals referred to as for suspended jail sentences of between 18 months and 16 years for the accused, saying their actions not directly led to the atrocity.
However, the prosecution had additionally angered members of Paty’s household by refusing to impose most sentences and downgrading the classification of a few of the crimes charged.
Getty ImagesDuring the trial, the court docket heard the primary public testimony from the woman, Z. Chnina, now 17.
A 12 months in the past she was given a brief suspended sentence for slander by a juvenile court docket, whose hearings have been held behind closed doorways.
“I need to apologize to the entire Paty household as a result of if it wasn’t for my lies they would not be right here immediately,” she mentioned by way of sobs.
“And I need to apologize to my dad as a result of when he made the video it was partly due to my lie.”
In the times after Paty’s free speech class, his father Brahim Chnina made movies denouncing the instructor by title. He additionally enlisted the assistance of activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui to unfold the marketing campaign throughout his social media community.
Chnina and Sefrioui by no means referred to as for motion towards Paty and have been unaware of Anzorov’s existence till the homicide occurred.
But based on the prosecution they have been nonetheless responsible of “terrorist affiliation”, as a result of they knew of the potential penalties of their marketing campaign.
“No one says they needed Samuel Paty useless, however by lighting 1,000 digital fuses they knew one in every of them would result in jihadist violence towards the instructor,” the indictment mentioned.
In October 2020 the context was characterised by rising tensions over jihadist violence, after Charlie Hebdo had republished a few of the controversial cartoons of Muhammad. Five years earlier many of the journal’s workers had been killed in a jihadist armed assault on their Paris headquarters.
This week in court docket an extended jail sentence was looked for Anzorov’s two mates who accompanied him when he purchased a knife and a pretend gun. One of them even accompanied Anzorov to highschool on the afternoon of the assault.
None of the defendants are radicalized Muslims and it was not established in court docket that they have been conscious of Anzorov’s plans.
For this purpose the prosecution downgraded the cost towards them from “complicity in a terrorist assault” which carries a potential life sentence.
The different 4 defendants are individuals with whom Anzorov conversed in chat, once more with out him ever revealing his intention to kill Paty.
One, a convert to Islam referred to as Priscilla Mangel, admitted making “provocative” feedback on-line concerning the Paty case however mentioned she would by no means have made them if she had identified Anzorov’s intentions.
“To me this was an anodyne dialogue with an nameless particular person.”
According to protection legal professionals, not one of the accused would have confronted felony prosecution for his or her claims if it had not been for Paty’s homicide.
So the important thing authorized query dealing with the Court is whether or not statements can change into unlawful relying on what follows.
