A French anti-terrorism court on Friday found eight people guilty of involvement in the head of the teacher Samuel Paty outside his school near Paris four years ago, a terrible death that shocked the country.
Paty, 47, was killed by an Islamic terrorist outside his school on October 16, 2020, days after he showed his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a discussion on free expression. The attacker, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot dead by the police.
Those who have been on trial on terrorism charges at a special court in Paris since late November have been accused, in some cases, of aiding the perpetrator and, in others , that they organized an online hate campaign before the murder took place.
STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images
The 540-seat courtroom was packed for the verdict, which marked the final chapter in Paty's trial. There was a heavy search, with more than 50 police officers guarding the proceedings.
Sitting in the front row was Paty's 9-year-old son, along with family members. As the chief judge, Franck Zientara, delivered sentences one after the other, emotions in the room ran high.
“I am moved, and I am relieved,” said Gaëlle Paty, Samuel Paty's sister, as she spoke to a crowd of reporters after the verdict. “Hearing the word 'guilty' – that I needed it.”
“I spent this week listening to a lot of re-writing of what happened, and it was hard to hear, but now the judge has told what really happened, and it feels good, ” she said, her voice breaking as tears filled her eyes.
The families of the accused responded with gasps, shouts, cries, and ironic clapping, prompting the judge to pause several times and call for silence.
“They lied about my brother,” cried one relative. Another woman, sobbing, shouted, “They took my baby from me,” before police officers took him away.
The seven-judge panel met or exceeded most of the conditions requested by prosecutors, citing “the particular gravity of the facts”.
Naïm Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, friends of the attacker, were convicted of complicity in murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison each. Neither can be paroled for two-thirds of their term, about 10 years. Boudaoud was accused of driving the attacker to the school, and Epsirkhanov helped him get a weapon.
Brahim Chnina, 52, the Muslim father of the schoolgirl whose lies sparked the events that led to Paty's death, was sentenced to 13 years for his association with a terrorist campaign. Prosecutors had sought 10 years for him.
Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a Muslim preacher, got 15 years for organizing an online hate campaign against Paty.
The shocking death of the 47-year-old teacher left an indelible mark on France, with several schools now named after him.
The trial had started at the end of November. The defendants were accused of assisting a perpetrator or organizing an online hate campaign before the murder.
At the time of the attack, there were protests in many Muslim countries and online calls for violence aimed at France and the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The newspaper had republished its cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad just weeks before Paty's death to mark the opening of the trial over the deadly 2015 attacks on its newsroom by Islamic extremists.
The cartoon images greatly 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 strong connection to secularism in public life.
Chnina's daughter, who was 13 at the time, said she was excluded from Paty's class when he showed the photos on October 5, 2020.
Chnina sent a series of messages to his contacts denouncing Paty, saying that “this sick man” had to be shot, along with the school's address in the Paris suburb of Conflans Saint- Honorine. Actually, Chnina's daughter had lied to him and never attended that lesson.
Paty was teaching a class ordered by the Ministry of National Education on freedom of expression. He discussed the cartoons in this context, saying that students who did not want 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 while walking home, and showed the teacher's head in a post on social media. Later the police killed Anzorov as he advanced towards them, armed.
Chnina's daughter was tried last year in juvenile court and an 18 month suspended sentence was given. Four other students at Paty's school were found guilty of involvement and sentences were suspended; the fifth, who identified Paty to Anzorov in exchange for money, received a term of 6 months with an electronic bracelet.
Sefrioui, the preacher under trial, had presented himself as a spokesman for the French Imams although he was expelled from that position. He had filmed a video in front of the school with the student's father. He referred to the teacher as a “thug” several times and tried to put pressure on the school administration through social media.
Some of the defendants expressed remorse and declared their innocence on the eve of the verdict. They didn't convince Paty's family.
“This is something that is shocking to the family,” said lawyer Virginie Le Roy before the verdicts. “You get the feeling that those in the box are completely unwilling to admit any responsibility .”
“Excuses are useless, they won't bring Samuel back, but explanations are valuable to us,” said Le Roy. “We didn't get many explanations of the truth.”
