At the trial for the assassination of Samuel Paty, the “daddy hen” and Islamist agitator

In the middle of the juvenile assembly of the accused in the trial of the assassination of Samuel Paty, most of whom were just out of adolescence at the time of the events, two white heads appear in the box of the special assize court of Paris: Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65, and Brahim Chnina, 52, who is ten years older after four years of pre-trial detention. They are the real adults of the infernal spiral which led to the death of the teacher, beheaded on October 16, 2020 by a radicalized 18-year-old Chechen.

Since the start of the trial, they have listened to the proceedings in silence, their silhouettes bending under the weight of the years and the facts with which they are accused. Both are accused of having orchestrated the campaign of hatred, based on the lie of a schoolgirl, which led to the death of the professor. Brahim Chnina is the father of the schoolgirl, the one who, by relaying his lie on social networks, designated Samuel Paty as a target. He had been encouraged in his cabal by an old backpacker of political Islamism, Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who had amplified the controversy by activating his community relays.

What pushed these two men to launch this defamatory campaign against the teacher? The stigmatization that Brahim Chnina wrongly thought his daughter had been a victim of? Religion? The desire to denounce the “ blasphemy » What would Samuel Paty have done by presenting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his students? This question will be explored later in the trial, when the facts are addressed.

But we have already had a few snippets of answers, Wednesday November 6 and Thursday November 7, during their personality interrogation. At each terrorist trial, this sequence is akin to a balancing act: it is forbidden to discuss the facts or the relationship of the accused to religion, but the substance of the case and religion always surface in the background.

“I have always done good”

In the opinion of all the relatives interviewed by the investigator responsible for drawing up his portrait, Brahim Chnina is a “daddy hen”a loving husband, brother and “ devoted “. The picture painted by those around him is that of a saint. This native of Oran, Algeria, who arrived in France at the age of 10, was forced at a very young age to “carry your family”, sacrificing his studies (he dreamed of being an airline pilot) to take care of his brothers and sisters, in particular his little brother Rachid, seriously handicapped by a rare disease.

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