On Monday, the first trial in the case of the murder of teacher Samuel Paty by a jihadist in 2020 began in Paris, with six students appearing in closed sessions before a juvenile court. A second trial will take place at the special assize court in Paris at the end of 2024, where eight adults will be represented.
The six students arrived at the court with their faces covered by their coats and entered the courtroom. The attack, which occurred in a context of high terrorist threat, caused immense shock in France and abroad. On October 16, 2020, the Russian refugee of Chechen origin, Abdullah Anzorov, stabbed the 47-year-old history and geography teacher before beheading him near the school where he taught in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in the Paris area. The attacker, who was 18 at the time of the attack, held Paty responsible for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of expression, expressing in a voice message in Russian that he was "avenging the Prophet."
The shock of this crime resurfaced in mid-October when university professor Dominique Bernard was murdered in Arras, northern France, by a young Islamic extremist. On Monday, the trial of five boys, who were aged 14 and 15 at the time of the attack, began, charged with conspiring to commit aggravated violence. They are accused of monitoring the school surroundings and directing the attacker to Paty in exchange for a reward. Additionally, a sixth girl, who was 13 at the time of the events, is on trial for defamation for claiming that Paty asked Muslim students to identify themselves and leave the class before showing the cartoons, although she was not present during the lesson. This falsehood triggered a violent campaign on social media fueled by her father, Ibrahim Shninah, and Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who produced videos that drew attention to the teacher. The two men will stand trial in the second case at the end of 2024, along with six other adults.
