8 convicted of terrorism charges in the 2020 beheading of a teacher in France

The French anti-terrorism court convicted eight people on Friday for their involvement at the beheading The death of teacher Samuel Paty outside his school near Paris four years ago was a horrific death that shocked the country.

Paty, 47, was killed by an Islamic extremist outside his school on October 16, 2020, just days after he showed his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a debate on free speech. The attacker, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot dead by police.

Those who have been on trial on terrorism charges in a special court in Paris since the end of November were partly accused of aiding and abetting the perpetrator and partly of organizing an online hate campaign before the murder.

The 540-seat courtroom was packed for the verdict, which marked the final chapter of the Paty trial. There was strict surveillance, with more than 50 police officers guarding the negotiations.

Paty’s 9-year-old son sat in the front row, accompanied by family members. As the lead judge, Franck Zientara, announced one sentence after the other, emotions ran high in the room.

“I am moved and relieved,” said Gaëlle Paty, Samuel Paty’s sister, as she addressed a crowd of reporters after the verdict. “Hearing the word ‘guilty’ – that’s what I needed.”

“I’ve spent this week hearing a lot about what happened and it was hard to understand, but now the judge has explained what really happened and it feels good,” she added, her voice broke as tears welled up in her eyes.

The defendants’ families responded with gasps, screams, shouts and ironic clapping, causing the judge to pause and call for silence several times.

“You lied about my brother,” a relative shouted. Another woman sobbed and shouted: “They took my baby away from me” before she was led out by police officers.

The seven-judge panel met or exceeded most of the conditions requested by prosecutors, citing “the exceptional gravity of the facts of the case.”

Naïm Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, friends of the attacker, were convicted of complicity in the murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison each. Neither can be paroled for two-thirds of their term, or about ten years. Boudaoud was accused of driving the attacker to school while Epsirkhanov helped him obtain weapons.

Brahim Chnina, 52, the Muslim father of the student whose lies triggered the events that led to Paty’s death, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for association with a terrorist enterprise. The public prosecutor’s office had demanded a prison sentence of ten years for him.

Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a Muslim preacher, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for organizing an online hate campaign against Paty.

The 47-year-old teacher’s shocking death has left an indelible mark on France, with several schools now named after him.

The process began at the end of November. The defendants were accused of supporting a perpetrator or organizing a hate campaign on the Internet before the murder.

At the time of the attack, there were protests in many Muslim countries and calls for violence against France and satire online French newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The newspaper had republished its cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed a few weeks before Paty’s death to celebrate the opening of the trial over deadly attacks by Islamic extremists on its newsroom in 2015.

The cartoon images deeply offended many Muslims and viewed them as sacrilege. But the fallout from Paty’s murder reinforced the French state’s commitment to freedom of expression and its firm adherence to secularism in public life.

Chnina’s then 13-year-old daughter claimed she was excluded from Paty’s class when he showed the cartoons on October 5, 2020.

Chnina sent a series of messages to his contacts denouncing Paty and saying that “this sick man” must 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 never attended the class in question.

Paty taught a course on freedom of expression commissioned by the National Ministry of Education. He addressed the cartoons in this context and said that students who did not want to see them could leave the classroom temporarily.

An online campaign against Paty gained momentum, and 11 days after the class, Anzorov attacked the teacher with a knife as he walked home and showed the teacher’s head in a social media post. Police later fatally shot Anzorov as he approached them armed.

Chnina’s daughter was was tried in juvenile court last year and sentenced to an 18-month suspended sentence. Four other students from Paty’s school were found guilty of involvement and given suspended sentences; A fifth, who passed Paty to Anzorov in exchange for money, received a six-month prison sentence with an electronic bracelet.

Sefrioui, the preacher on trial, had presented himself as a spokesman for the Imams of France, although he had been dismissed from that role. He had filmed a video with the student’s father in front of the school. He repeatedly called the teacher a “thug” and tried to put pressure on the school management via social media.

Some of the defendants expressed regret and protested their innocence on the eve of the verdict. They didn’t convince Paty’s family.

“It is something that really shocks the family,” said lawyer Virginie Le Roy before the verdict. “You get the feeling that the people in the lodge are absolutely not prepared to take on any responsibility.”

“Apologies are pointless, they don’t bring Samuel back, but explanations are valuable to us,” Le Roy said. “We haven’t received much explanation of the facts.”