Eight people went on trial in France on Monday, accused of contributing to the climate of hatred that led to the beheading of 18-year-old Chechen teacher Samuel Paty outside Paris in 2020.
Seven men and one woman appeared in court in a case that will last until December, regarding the case of killing Paty, 47, who is a teacher of history and geography, which shocked France.
Their trial began when the defendants confirmed their identity, said an AFP reporter.
The perpetrator, Abdoullakh Anzorov, who had sought asylum in France, was also killed by police shortly after he killed Paty near the latter’s school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris.
The teacher, who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, is considered a champion of free speech by French authorities and his school is now named after him.
Six defendants, three of whom are under legal supervision and not currently in custody, were tried for participating in an act of terrorism, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
They include Brahim Chnina, a 52-year-old from Morocco.
He is the father of a 13-year-old schoolboy who said Paty asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before they showed pictures of the prophet Mohammed.
The claim was false and he was not in class at the time.
Also on trial is Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65, a Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist.
He and Chnina spread the lies of the youth on social media with the aim, according to the prosecutor, to “select a target”, “to arouse a feeling of hatred” and “thereby prepare for several crimes”.
Both men have been in pre-trial detention for the past four years.
– ‘Danger of Death’ –
Two young friends of the attacker are facing serious charges of “complicity in the killing of terrorists”, which carries a life sentence.
Naim Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, a Russian of Chechen origin, are accused of accompanying Anzorov to a knife shop in the northern city of Rouen the day before the attack.
“Nearly three years of investigation have not been able to establish that Naim Boudaoud had knowledge of the attacker’s criminal plans,” his lawyers Adel Fares and Hiba Rizkallah told AFP, denying their client’s “involvement” in the crime.
Thibault de Montbrial and Pauline Ragot, lawyers for Mickaelle Paty, one of the murdered teacher’s sisters, said her killing highlighted “the depth of the penetration of Islam in France”.
The case should mainly “allow our society to know about the risk of death”, they added.
The case is scheduled to continue until December 20.
Six former high school students were sentenced in December 2023 to sentences ranging from 14 months suspended to six months in prison, following a closed trial before a juvenile court.
However, those sentenced to prison will not ultimately be sentenced.
Chnina’s daughter was sentenced to 18 months in that case after being convicted of blasphemy when she condemned Paty.
Paty had used 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 came just weeks after Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
After the magazine used the images in 2015, Islamist gunmen stormed its offices, killing 12 people.
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