In 2020, a teacher lost his life outside his school in Paris. This tragic incident occurred after he shared cartoons of Prophet Muhammad with his students. Six teenagers are now facing a trial, held behind closed doors, in connection with the beheading of the French history teacher, Samuel Paty.
Samuel Paty, 47, was killed by Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old of Chechen origin, shortly after displaying caricatures of Prophet Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression. The shocking event stirred the entire country. The teenagers, aged 14 to 15 at the time, could face up to 2.5 years in prison for criminal conspiracy with intent to cause violence.
They are accused of revealing the teacher’s identity to the assailant in exchange for money. Due to their age, the youths’ identities are protected, and they appeared in court on Monday wearing hoodies to conceal their faces.
One of the six, a 13-year-old girl at the time, claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave the room before showing the cartoons. However, she was not present in the class during the incident.
The teenagers, during questioning, expressed that they never anticipated the situation escalating to murder; at most, they believed Paty would face consequences on social media.
Antoine Ory, a lawyer for one of the accused, stated that his client is filled with regret and fears facing Paty’s family.
Paty’s sister, Mickaelle, asserted that her brother would still be alive without a “fatal association of small cowardices, big lies.”
The role of the minors is considered pivotal in the events leading to the teacher’s assassination, according to a lawyer representing Paty’s family.
The hearings, scheduled until December 8, will continue behind closed doors. Additionally, eight adults are also implicated and will appear before a special criminal court.
Notably, almost two years after Paty’s killing, a 20-year-old man named Dominique Bernard was fatally stabbed, and two others were gravely wounded in an attack at a school in northern France.
Similar to Anzorov, the suspected killer, Mohammed Moguchkov, hailed from Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus region.
Anzorov targeted Paty based on social media messages claiming that the teacher had shown the controversial cartoons, originally published in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, triggering a deadly attack by gunmen.
