Verdicts due for eight people on trial for role in beheading of teacher in France. The defendants are accused of assisting the extremist who beheaded a French history teacher will hear the verdicts in their cases on Friday, December 20, more than four years after the death of Samuel Paty outside his school.
Paty was killed near Paris on October 16, 2020, days after showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The assailant, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot to death by police.
Why were the Charlie Hebdo cartoons so divisive?
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons furor erupted in France. Many in French denouncing the deliberately provocative cartoons, (knowing full well the magazine was just trying to sell magazines) that fuelled so much civil unrest.
But the French government reacted to the shootings and doubled down on its stance to protect the magazine PR stunts. As a result, a series of protests and civil unrest imploded in Paris.
The French Police had to pander to public opinion, and echoes of the French revolution still ring through parliament in Paris. In a case of such global media exposure, the French had to deliver prosecutions. The killer was already dead, so they had to find some other perpetrators.
A special court in Paris
Those who have been are on trial on terrorism charges at a special court in Paris since the end of November are accused, in some cases, of providing assistance to the perpetrator and, in others, of organizing a hate campaign online before the murder took place.
The shocking death of the 47-year-old Paty left an imprint on France, and several schools are now named after him. Prosecutors have requested sentences ranging from 18 months suspended imprisonment to 16 years in prison against the defendants.
They include friends of assailant Abdoullakh Anzorov, who allegedly helped purchase weapons for the attack and the father of a schoolgirl whose lies started the fatal spiral of events.
This case divided the public opinion, on one hand they had the deplorable murder of school teacher and on the other what information should be provided to impressionable children in schools.
Downgrade the offenses
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor has asked the court to downgrade the offenses of four of the eight defendants, prompting ire from Paty’s family. “It’s more than a disappointment,” Paty’s sister Mickaëlle told broadcaster TF1. “In a moment like this, it feels like one is fighting for nothing.”
The prosecutor dropped the charge of complicity in favor of a lower charge of association with a terrorist enterprise against the two young men accused of providing the logistical support to the killer. He asked for 14 years in prison for Naïm Boudaoud and 16 years for Azim Epsirkhanov.
Provocative and offensive
The attack occurred against a backdrop of protests in many Muslim countries and calls online for violence targeting France and the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
The newspaper had republished its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad a few weeks before Paty’s death to mark the opening of the trial over deadly 2015 attacks on its newsroom by extremists.
The cartoon images deeply offended many Muslims
The cartoon images deeply offended many Muslims, who saw them as sacrilegious. But the fallout from Paty’s killing reinforced the French state’s commitment to freedom of expression and its firm attachment to secularism in public life.
Much of the attention at the trial focused on Brahim Chnina, the Muslim father of a teenager who was 13 at the time and claimed that she had been excluded from Paty’s class when he showed the caricatures on October 5, 2020.
Chnina, 52, sent a series of messages to his friends and Whatsapp groups denouncing Paty, saying that “this sick man” needed to be fired, along with the address of the school in the Paris suburb of Conflans Saint-Honorine. In reality, Chnina’s daughter had lied to him and had never attended the lesson in question.
Online campaign against Paty
Paty was giving a lesson mandated by the National Education Ministry on freedom of expression. He discussed the caricatures in this context, saying students who did not wish to see them could temporarily leave the classroom. An online campaign against Paty snowballed, and 11 days after the lesson, Anzorov attacked the teacher with a knife as he walked home, and displayed the teacher’s head on social media. Police later shot Anzorov as he advanced toward them, armed and the verdicts due for eight people on trial.
The French needed a tough sentence
Chnina is accused of alleged association with a terrorist enterprise for targeting the 47-year-old teacher through false information. The prosecutor requested a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for him His daughter was tried last year in a juvenile court and given an 18-month suspended sentence.
Four other students at Paty’s school were found guilty of involvement and given suspended sentences; a fifth, who pointed out Paty to Anzorov in exchange for money, was given a 6-month term with an electronic bracelet.
This was a public trial
This was a public trial and the need to be tough by the prosecution was obvious. Abdelhakim Sefrioui, (The French extremists likened to Tommy Robinson) who presented himself as a spokesperson for Imams of France even though he had been dismissed from that role, is another key figure in the trial. He filmed a video in front of the school with the father of the student. He referred to the teacher as a “thug” multiple times and sought to pressure the school administration via social media. Prosecutors have requested a firm 12-year sentence for him.
Some of the defendants expressed regrets and claimed their innocence on the eve of the verdicts due for eight people on trial. They did not convince Paty’s family. “It’s something that really shocks the family,” lawyer Virginie Le Roy said.
“You get the feeling that those in the box are absolutely unwilling to admit any responsibility whatsoever. Apologies are pointless, they won’t bring Samuel back, but explanations are precious to us. But, unfortunately, I have to make a more than mixed assessment. We haven’t had many explanations of the facts.”