PARIS (AP) — Six teenagers go on trial in Paris on Monday for their alleged role in the beheading of a teacher who showed his class cartoons of Islam’s prophet. This killing prompted authorities to reaffirm France’s cherished rights to freedom of expression and secularism.
Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, was killed on October 16, 2020 near his school in a suburb northwest of Paris by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin who had become radicalized. The attacker was again shot by the police.
Paty’s name was announced on social media after a class debate on free speech in which he showed cartoons published by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which sparked a newsroom massacre by extremists in January 2015.
All hearings in a Paris juvenile court take place behind closed doors in accordance with French juvenile law.
The defendants arrived at the Paris court on Monday morning accompanied by their families, their faces hidden behind masks and hoods. The media is not allowed to reveal their identities.
One of the defendants on trial is a then 13-year-old teenager who is accused of making false statements for falsely saying that Paty asked Muslim students to raise their hands and leave the classroom before watching the cartoons showed. She later told investigators she lied. The investigation found she was not in the classroom that day and Paty did not make such a request.
Five other students from Paty’s school, then 14 and 15 years old, are charged with criminal conspiracy with the aim of preparing serious violence.
They are accused of waiting for Paty to leave school for several hours and identifying him as the murderer in return for promises of payment of 300 to 350 euros ($348 to $406).
The investigation revealed that the attacker knew the teacher’s name and the address of his school, but did not have the means to identify him.
The lawyer of one of the defendants, Antoine Ory, said his client was “plagued by remorse and very afraid of confronting Mr Paty’s family”. He said the teenager was “obviously unaware of the criminal plan” of killer Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Moscow-born Chechen refugee.
Ory said his client has since had “difficult” times, changing schools and friends, and now sees the trial as an opportunity to turn the tide.
All six teenagers face two and a half years in prison. The trial is scheduled to end on December 8th.
Louis Cailliez, the lawyer for Paty’s sister Mickaëlle, said she wanted to “understand the real causes” that led the students to commit something irreparable. He referred to the “fatal combination of small acts of cowardice, big lies, slanders, arrangements, complicity and help without which Samuel Paty would still be alive.”
“Without denunciation there would be no visibility (on social media), without visibility there would be no crime,” he said.
Eight other adults are scheduled to appear in court later. Among them is the father of the teenager who was charged with false allegations. At that time, he posted videos on social media calling for mobilization against the teacher.
A radical Islamic activist who helped him spread the malicious messages, named Paty, was also charged.
The trial comes six weeks after a teacher was fatally stabbed and three other people were injured in an attack on a school by a former student suspected of Islamic radicalization. The killing, amid global tensions surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas, prompted French authorities to deploy 7,000 additional troops across the country to increase security and vigilance.