“On October 16, 2020 at 4:54 p.m., in the person of Samuel Paty, Islamist terrorism reached the school, the beating heart of the Republic. Samuel Paty was not a symbol, he was not the martyr of any cause. He had not chosen to die in defense of any principle. But, through him, much of who we are as a society has been achieved. This Republic of teachers and professors, of which all citizens are heirs and of which Samuel Paty was the incarnation, it begins with freedom of expression which is nothing without the education offered to all…”
It was with these unifying words that the indictment opened, Monday, December 16, brought by the two representatives of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT), Marine Valentin and Nicolas Braconnay, against the eight accused tried for the assassination. of history and geography professor Samuel Paty, beheaded a few meters from his college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) by a Chechen jihadist from 18 years old, Abdoullakh Anzorov.
If this attack “fractured our society”both magistrates know, the expectations of public opinion, and even more so those of the civil parties, sometimes clash with the legal reality of a case. “It is possible that what we are going to say does not completely correspond to their expectations”they warned. In fact, in light of the six weeks of debates which have passed since the opening of the trial, the public prosecutor requested that the charges against half of the accused be reclassified downwards.
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