The Fort Worth Press - Eight on trial over French teacher's 2020 beheading

USD -
AED 3.672979
AFN 69.919011
ALL 94.359515
AMD 393.348349
ANG 1.794987
AOA 917.999683
ARS 1017.703129
AUD 1.598795
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.701512
BAM 1.874539
BBD 2.011022
BDT 119.020463
BGN 1.873937
BHD 0.375809
BIF 2944.649446
BMD 1
BND 1.352662
BOB 6.882638
BRL 6.086007
BSD 0.996022
BTN 84.675325
BWP 13.766234
BYN 3.259501
BYR 19600
BZD 2.002109
CAD 1.436275
CDF 2869.99958
CHF 0.89289
CLF 0.035803
CLP 987.904347
CNY 7.296401
CNH 7.28925
COP 4359.706714
CRC 502.515934
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 105.683615
CZK 24.066028
DJF 177.361384
DKK 7.14693
DOP 60.650788
DZD 134.805195
EGP 50.873461
ERN 15
ETB 124.157665
EUR 0.958275
FJD 2.31705
FKP 0.791982
GBP 0.79523
GEL 2.810385
GGP 0.791982
GHS 14.6413
GIP 0.791982
GMD 71.999513
GNF 8604.974361
GTQ 7.674318
GYD 208.376863
HKD 7.772675
HNL 25.282983
HRK 7.172906
HTG 130.301433
HUF 396.805497
IDR 16171.3
ILS 3.65434
IMP 0.791982
INR 84.952499
IQD 1304.739541
IRR 42087.499284
ISK 139.120209
JEP 0.791982
JMD 155.834571
JOD 0.709105
JPY 156.433494
KES 128.585805
KGS 87.000252
KHR 4002.491973
KMF 466.125018
KPW 899.999441
KRW 1446.419829
KWD 0.30795
KYD 0.830019
KZT 523.074711
LAK 21799.971246
LBP 89190.58801
LKR 292.423444
LRD 180.77347
LSL 18.3368
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.893852
MAD 10.024153
MDL 18.345713
MGA 4699.285954
MKD 58.978291
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.99987
MOP 7.973547
MRU 39.610869
MUR 47.196859
MVR 15.402453
MWK 1727.033114
MXN 20.06173
MYR 4.508009
MZN 63.903729
NAD 18.3368
NGN 1549.540153
NIO 36.651172
NOK 11.31937
NPR 135.480903
NZD 1.76986
OMR 0.384799
PAB 0.996022
PEN 3.708823
PGK 4.038913
PHP 58.869731
PKR 277.232856
PLN 4.081684
PYG 7766.329611
QAR 3.6309
RON 4.771603
RSD 112.168001
RUB 102.775169
RWF 1388.412326
SAR 3.756308
SBD 8.383555
SCR 13.944994
SDG 601.495264
SEK 11.02806
SGD 1.354865
SHP 0.791982
SLE 22.798376
SLL 20969.503029
SOS 569.224134
SRD 35.131025
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.715196
SYP 2512.530243
SZL 18.332295
THB 34.292502
TJS 10.896056
TMT 3.51
TND 3.173719
TOP 2.342098
TRY 35.19402
TTD 6.759956
TWD 32.630964
TZS 2365.457421
UAH 41.771505
UGX 3653.615757
UYU 44.42421
UZS 12841.328413
VES 51.475251
VND 25455
VUV 118.722003
WST 2.762788
XAF 628.702736
XAG 0.033694
XAU 0.000381
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.759764
XOF 628.702736
XPF 114.304883
YER 250.374981
ZAR 18.30087
ZMK 9001.198901
ZMW 27.564096
ZWL 321.999592
  • CMSD

    0.0000

    23.56

    0%

  • BCC

    -0.2600

    122.75

    -0.21%

  • SCS

    -0.5800

    11.74

    -4.94%

  • NGG

    0.8200

    58.5

    +1.4%

  • RIO

    -0.0900

    58.64

    -0.15%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    7.27

    -0.14%

  • CMSC

    0.0200

    23.86

    +0.08%

  • BCE

    0.0500

    23.16

    +0.22%

  • RBGPF

    59.9600

    59.96

    +100%

  • RELX

    -0.3100

    45.47

    -0.68%

  • JRI

    0.1100

    12.06

    +0.91%

  • GSK

    0.1700

    33.6

    +0.51%

  • BTI

    0.1131

    36.24

    +0.31%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    8.39

    +0.12%

  • AZN

    0.9100

    65.35

    +1.39%

  • BP

    0.1900

    28.6

    +0.66%

Eight on trial over French teacher's 2020 beheading
Eight on trial over French teacher's 2020 beheading / Photo: © AFP/File

Eight on trial over French teacher's 2020 beheading

Eight people went on trial in France on Monday charged with contributing to the climate of hatred that led to an 18-year-old Islamist radical of Chechen origin beheading teacher Samuel Paty outside Paris in 2020.

Text size:

Seven men and one woman are appearing in court in the trial, set to last until December, over the murder of 47-year-old Paty, a teacher of history and geography, that shocked France.

They trial began with the defendants confirming their identity, an AFP correspondent said.

Perpetrator Abdoullakh Anzorov, who had requested asylum in France, was himself killed by police shortly after he murdered Paty near the latter's school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine west of Paris.

The teacher, who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, is regarded as a hero of free speech by the French authorities and his school is now being named after him.

Six defendants, three of whom are under judicial supervision and are not currently in prison, are being tried for participation in a criminal terrorist act, a crime punishable by 30 years in jail.

They include Brahim Chnina, a 52-year-old Moroccan.

He is the father of a 13-year-old schoolgirl who claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing caricatures of the prophet Mohammed.

The claim was false and she was not in the classroom at the time.

Also on trial is Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a 65-year-old Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist.

He and Chnina spread the teenager's lies on social networks with the aim, according to the prosecution, of "designating a target", "provoking a feeling of hatred" and "thus preparing several crimes".

Both men have been in pre-trial detention for the past four years.

- 'Mortal peril' -

Two young friends of the attacker are facing even graver charges of "complicity in terrorist murder", a crime punishable by life imprisonment.

Naim Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, a Russian of Chechen origin, are accused of having accompanied Anzorov to a knife shop in the northern city of Rouen the day before the attack.

"Nearly three years of investigation have never managed to establish that Naim Boudaoud had any knowledge of the attacker's criminal plans," his lawyers Adel Fares and Hiba Rizkallah told AFP, denying their client's "complicity" in the crime.

Thibault de Montbrial and Pauline Ragot, lawyers for Mickaelle Paty, one of the sisters of the murdered teacher, said his killing had highlighted the "depth of Islamist infiltration in France".

The trial should in particular "allow our society to become aware of a mortal peril", they added.

The trial is scheduled to last until December 20.

Six former high school students were sentenced in December 2023 to terms ranging from 14 months suspended to six months in prison, following a closed-door trial before the juvenile court.

Those sentenced to prison, however, will not in the end serve jail time.

Chnina's daughter was sentenced in that trial to 18 months probation after being convicted of calumny in her denunciation of Paty.

Paty had used the Charlie Hebdo magazine as part of an ethics class to discuss free speech laws in France, where blasphemy is legal and cartoons mocking religious figures have a long history.

His killing took place just weeks after Charlie Hebdo republished the Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

After the magazine used the images in 2015, Islamist gunmen stormed its offices, killing 12 people.

G.Dominguez--TFWP