Accused of terrorist criminal association, the father of the schoolgirl who started the rumor apologized for having called the history and geography teacher a “thug” in a video.
“What I did is irreparable.” In the accused box, Brahim Chnina, with graying hair and a receding hairline, stands up and tilts his head towards the microphone, to say that he “regrets infinitely” his actions, more than four years after the assassination of Samuel Paty. The father of the schoolgirl who had launched the fatal rumor to the history and geography teacher renewed his regrets, Monday, December 2, throughout his interrogation.
But this 52-year-old man, weakened by diabetes, takes no responsibility and denies doing “part of a criminal terrorist association”. However, this is what has caused this home help to be tried for almost a month before the special criminal court in Paris. Brahim Chnina is being prosecuted for having participated “the production and dissemination of videos presenting false or distorted information intended to arouse a feeling of hatred” against Samuel Paty, beheaded by Abdoullakh Anzorov, a young Chechen radical Islamist, on October 16, 2020.
Nine days before the attack, the accused's daughter had told her father that Samuel Paty had shown caricatures of naked Mohammed published in Charlie Hebdo. According to her, the teacher asked Muslim students to leave class if they were shocked. However, the schoolgirl was actually absent from class. Everything she said at the time was just a “lie”admitted the young girl in front of the court. She was sentenced last year to eighteen months in prison for slanderous denunciation.
Today, Brahim Chnina regrets having “believed his daughter 100%”. Elle “made a mistake and I did the same”assumes the father of the family, who recognizes that he cannot “put everything” on his daughter's back. “At one point I thought that Mr. Paty didn’t like Muslims,” concedes Brahim Chnina, who is also co-founder of an association helping people with reduced mobility to go on pilgrimage to Mecca.
“What hurt me the most was the exclusion, the discrimination, then the caricatures: I put them in that order”he explains, delivering his story in fits and starts, in a slightly broken voice. So Brahim Chnina sends messages on Whatsapp, to groups that matter “around 250 people” to tell his daughter's fable. The rumor is launched, Samuel Paty named.
“I made the unforgivable mistake of giving the contact details of the teacher and the school.”
brahim chininabefore the special assize court of Paris
The next day, Brahim Chnina went to college in the company of Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, whom he had met the previous month and who was also in the dock. A little over four years ago, the two men insisted on meeting the principal of the Conflans-Saint-Honorine college where Samuel Paty worked. “He was used to handling this kind of situation in schools, I accepted his help”he justifies. But the tone rises and everyone sticks to their positions. The same evening, Brahim Chnina films himself with his cell phone, a surgical mask on his face. “My daughter, she was shocked by the behavior of her teacher, he was a thug”he declares in his video, posted on Facebook and which quickly goes viral. “This thug must no longer stay in National Education.”
And “gear” that the accused regrets today, as much as the use of the word “thug”. “It is not in my vocabulary, it is not part of my language”assures Brahim Chnina, who repeatedly apologizes to Samuel Paty's family for this term. He explains that he used it because Abdelhakim Sefrioui used it, while refuting that he places responsibility on his co-accused. “It's both of us”, he says. Because Brahim Chnina gave his agreement for his daughter to be filmed from behind by Abdelhakim Sefrioui on October 8, 2020, after the meeting with the principal. Images used in a second ten-minute video, entitled “Islam and the prophet insulted in a public college”, posted on YouTube three days later, and which totaled 13,000 views on October 16 at 7:05 p.m.
Did the murderer see this video? The investigation did not prove this. On the other hand, investigations reveal “nine contacts over the period from October 9 to 13, 2020 between Brahim Chnina and Abdoullakh Anzorov”. However, the accused does not particularly remember having exchanged with him. “He must have either offered me financial assistance or told me that he was going to be present at the demonstration” that he prepared with Abdelhakim Sefrioui, suggests Brahim Chnina, who recites his arguments over and over under the watchful eye of his lawyers.
An attitude which encourages the lawyer of the parents and one of Samuel Paty's sisters to push him to his limits. “Why did you bother?” insists Virginie Le Roy. “I tried to create a bond with Mr. Paty, it didn’t work, I’m sure that if I had met him there wouldn’t have been all this”replies the accused.
“You say you are responsible, but responsible for what?”
Virginie Le Roy, lawyer for the family of Samuel Patybefore the special assize court of Paris
“From the video and the messages I made. I had no intention of harming Mr. Paty and that I want [s]The family knows this from the bottom of their hearts.”retorts Brahim Chnina. The accused, who faces thirty years of criminal imprisonment, says he is aware that “the judges will decide on this side”. The verdict is expected on December 20.
