Prosecutors seek sentences of 16 years in teacher beheading trial

French prosecutors on Monday, December 16, sought jail terms of between one and 16 years for eight people on trial over the 2020 beheading of a school teacher by an Islamist radical that shocked France.

The harshest sentence was reserved for a defendant accused of joining a terrorist enterprise helping to prepare the murder of Samuel Paty, after the teacher showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class.

Charges of “complicity in terrorist murder” against two of the men on trial were dropped. Prosecutors told the court that Naïm Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, a Russian of Chechen origin, should still be found guilty of “membership in a terrorist organization” for which they face up to 30 years in prison.

Paty was killed in October 2020 by 18-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, who beheaded him. Boudaoud and Epsirkhanov were both friends with Anzorov, who died in a shootout with police after the beheading, which subsequently made Paty a free-speech hero to the French authorities.

Prosecutor Marine Valentin said in her closing statement that the accused had been “fully aware” of Anzorov’s “jihadist convictions” when they gave logistical support, including to buy weapons.

Boudaoud is accused of accompanying Anzorov to buy two replica guns and steel pellets on the day of the attack. Epsirkhanov admitted he had received €800 euros from Anzorov to find him a real gun but had not succeeded.

But prosecutor Valentin said that there was no absolute certainty that they had meant to participate in the preparation of terrorist murder.

‘Not completely meet expectations’

Earlier another prosecutor, Nicolas Braconnay, had already cautioned that the prosecutors’ stance may “not completely meet the expectations” of Paty’s family.

A total of eight people have been on trial since last month charged with contributing to the climate of hatred that led to the gruesome killing of the 47-year-old history and geography teacher. The defendants include Brahim Chnina, a 52-year-old Moroccan and the father of a schoolgirl, then aged 13. She falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures. She was not actually in the classroom at the time.

Also on trial is Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a 65-year-old Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist. He and Chnina spread the teenager’s lies on social networks with the aim, according to the prosecution, of “designating a target,” “provoking a feeling of hatred” and “thus preparing several crimes.” Both men have been in pre-trial detention for the past four years.

Between October 9 and 13, Chnina spoke to Anzorov nine times by telephone after he published videos criticizing Paty, the investigation showed. Sefrioui posted a video criticizing what he considered to be Islamophobia in France and describing Paty as a “teaching thug,” but told investigators he was only seeking “administrative sanctions.”

Paty had used the cartoons, first published in Charlie Hebdo magazine, as part of an ethics class to discuss free speech laws in France, where blasphemy is legal and cartoons mocking religious figures have a long history. His killing took place just weeks after Charlie Hebdo republished the Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

Four other defendants interacted with Anzorov online.