Seven adult men and one woman are on trial from this Monday, November 4 in Paris for the death of Samuel Paty, professor of history and geography, murdered in his college in Conflans Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) in October 2020. BFMTV.com takes stock of the profile of these eight individuals, some of whom risk life imprisonment.
Eight people, aged 22 to 65, will appear starting this Monday, November 4, before the Paris Special Assize Court for their alleged involvement in the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty, beheaded on October 16, 2020 by Abdoullakh Anzorov, 18 years old, a radicalized Russian of Chechen origin.
Two of the accused are on trial for complicity in terrorist assassination, a crime punishable by life imprisonment, the six others for criminal terrorist association (thirty years incurred).
Brahim Chnina and Abdelhakim Sefrioui, the whistleblowers
Of Moroccan nationality, Brahim Chnina, 52, is the father of the schoolgirl at the origin of the controversy over lessons taught by Samuel Paty and his presentation of caricatures of Mohammed. Co-founder of Aide-Moi, an association helping people with reduced mobility to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, he is accused of having launched, with Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a vast campaign of cyberharassment against the professor.
On October 7 and 8, 2020, he published videos to stigmatize Samuel Paty and designate him as a target, as well as precise information on his identity and his place of professional practice. Between October 9 and 13, Brahim Chnina had nine telephone contacts with Anzorov.
In pre-trial detention since October 21, 2020, he seeks, according to the prison administration, to position himself as a victim who does not recognize any responsibility for the acts with which he is accused.
Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65-year-old Franco-Moroccan, is an Islamist activist, founder of the pro-Hamas collective Cheikh Yassine, dissolved on October 21, 2020. He is accused of having participated with Brahim Chnina “in the development and dissemination of videos presenting false or distorted information intended to arouse a feeling of hatred” towards Samuel Paty.
He will appear detained at trial and, like Brahim Chnina, faces thirty years of criminal imprisonment. His lawyers denounce an “intellectual and judicial aberration”, estimating that no contact was established between Abdelhakim Sefrioui and Anzorov and that there is no proof that the attacker saw the video posted by their client five days ago before the professor's assassination.
Naïm Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, the logisticians
Naïm Boudaoud, a 22-year-old Frenchman, is one of the two accused, along with Azim Epsirkhanov, being prosecuted for “complicity in assassination”. Described by the prosecution as “particularly vulnerable” and “influenceable”, and “without any visible sign of violent radicalization”, he frequented Azim Epsirkhanov and Abdoullakh Anzorov “multiplying the services” to one or the other.
The day before the attack, in the company of his co-accused, he took Abdoullakh Anzorov to a cutlery in Rouen to purchase a knife corresponding to the one found near his body. On the day of the assassination, Naïm Boudaoud accompanied Anzorov to a store in Cergy to purchase Airsoft pistols and steel balls.
Azim Epsirkhanov, a 23-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, arrived in France in December 2010. He was complicit, according to the prosecution, in the assassination of Samuel Paty “by actively helping and accompanying” his friend. for a long time” Abdoullakh Anzorov, met at college in 2013, “in the research and purchase of weapons”.
During the hearing, Azim Epsirkhanov admitted to having received the sum of 800 euros from Anzorov to get him a firearm urgently, which he failed to do.
The digital correspondents, three men and a woman
Four other people, three men and one woman, are accused of having supported the terrorist in his project on messaging services such as Snapchat or Instagram.
Among them, Yusuf Cinar, a 22-year-old Turkish man, shared a Snapchat group called “Zbrr” with Abdoullakh Anzorov whom he considered “a close friend”, even “like a brother”. This group, which disseminated jihadist propaganda, published Anzorov's message of protest and photographs of Samuel Paty's body after the attack. And later videos in tribute to the attacker.
Ismaïl Gamaev, a Russian of Chechen origin now aged 22, “actively participated” with Abdoullakh Anzorov and Louqmane Ingar (another accused) in a Snapchat group exchanging, anonymously and encrypted, messages with jihadist content.
In particular, he would have “comforted Abdoullakh Anzorov” in his assassination plan in the weeks preceding the act.
Mathias Tesson and Ariel Guez with AFP
