Excluded for indiscipline on the day of class, she lied, saying she had attended, and claiming that the teacher had asked Muslim students to leave class.
Seven men and one woman have been appearing before the Paris Special Assize Court since Monday, November 4, as part of the trial for the assassination of Samuel Paty.
Justice accuses them of having helped to varying degrees the Chechen terrorist Abdoullakh Anzorov to equip himself and then find Samuel Paty, professor of history and geography, before assassinating him on October 16, 2020 in front of his college near Conflans-Sainte -Honorine (Yvelines).
This Tuesday, November 26, the young schoolgirl at the origin of the controversy over the course given by the professor, on October 5 and 6, 2020, on freedom of expression and freedom of the press, during which he had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad taken from the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, is present at the hearing. His testimony is one of the most anticipated in this trial.
At the helm
Born in 2007 and in 4th grade at the time, she was excluded for two days because of her behavior and her absences, recalls TF1. She then lied to her parents, telling them that Samuel Paty had shown drawings of the naked prophet and that he had asked Muslim students to leave the class. In December 2023, she was sentenced to 18 months of probation for slanderous denunciation.
On the stand this Tuesday, the teenager, now 17 years old and in her final year, confessed to having lied to her parents “under the influence of panic and stress”, because she did not want to disappoint them . They risked learning that she was excluded from the course because she did “a lot of stupid things”.
“Without my lie, no one would be here”
The teenager admits to being disruptive in the classroom and often absent. “I told myself that someone was going to stop me in my lie,” she continues, but the consequences will be irreparable. “I saw the photo of Samuel Paty's decapitated head. I took my phone and threw it in the car. The next day, I learned that my father had been taken into police custody.”
Continuing: “I would like to apologize to the family […] I'm sorry for destroying your life. I wanted to apologize to my teachers for my behavior and my lying that brought us all back here. Without my lie, no one would be here.”
