Eight people went on trial in Paris yesterday on terrorism charges over the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who was killed by an Islamic extremist after showing caricatures of Islam’s prophet to his middle-school students for a lesson on freedom of expression.
Paty’s shocking death left an imprint on France, and several schools are now named after him.
Paty was killed outside his school near Paris on Oct. 16, 2020, by an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, who was shot to death by police.
Photo: AP
Those on trial include friends of assailant Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped purchase weapons for the attack, as well as people who are accused of spreading false information online about the teacher and his class.
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 Mohammed a few weeks before Paty’s death to mark the opening of the trial over deadly 2015 attacks on its newsroom by Islamic extremists.
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 attention at the trial would focus on Brahim Chnina, the Muslim father of a 13-year-old girl who claimed that she had been excluded from Paty’s class when he showed the caricatures on Oct. 5, 2020.
Chnina sent a series of messages to his contacts 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.
Paty was giving a moral and civic education lesson mandated by the French Ministry of Education 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.
Chnina would be tried for alleged association with a terrorist enterprise for targeting the 47-year-old teacher through false information.
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 six-month term with an electronic bracelet.
Abdelhakim Sefrioui is another key figure in the trial that opened yesterday for the adult suspects.
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.
Sefrioui founded the pro-Hamas Cheikh Yassine Collective in 2004, which was dissolved a few days after Paty’s killing. Sefrioui had long criticized and threatened Muslims who advocate friendship with Jews, including the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris.
Sefrioui and Chnina face 30 years in prison if convicted.
Chnina denied any incitement to “kill” in his messages and video, claiming he did not intend to incite hatred and violence, judicial documents showed.
Sefrioui’s lawyers have said they would seek his acquittal, and that the video filmed by Sefrioui in front of the school was not seen by the terrorist.
Anzorov, who had wanted to go to Syria to fight with Islamic extremists there, discovered Paty’s name on jihadist social media channels, investigators said. Anzorov lived 100km from Paty’s school and did not know the teacher.
Two of Anzorov’s friends face life imprisonment if convicted on charges of complicity in murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise. Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov are accused of helping Anzorov buy a knife and a pellet gun. Boudaoud also drove Anzorov to Paty’s school.
They turned themselves in at the police station, and deny being aware of the attacker’s intentions.
The other four people are charged with criminal terrorist conspiracy for communicating with the killer on pro-jihad Snapchat groups.
They all deny being aware of the intent to kill Samuel Paty. One of them sent smiling emojis after the decapitated teacher’s head was shared.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS