Eight people have been on trial since Monday before the Paris Special Assize Court for their alleged involvement in the attack which cost the life of the history and geography professor on October 16, 2020.
“A decapitated body, with a disjointed head next to it.” The voice of the president of the Paris Special Assize Court, Franck Zientara, resonates in a silent courtroom, Monday November 4. On the first day of the trial for the assassination of Samuel Paty, his words underline the violence to which the professor was subjected “300 meters from Bois d'Aulne college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, on the route taken by him to his home”October 16, 2020 in Yvelines, “around 4:54 p.m. He recalls that the attacker, Abdoullakh Anzorov, a young 18-year-old refugee from the Russian republic of Chechnya, a radical Islamist, is “neutralized at 5:04 p.m.”after having “pointed a handgun” and headed towards the police, “despite the summons”. Killed instantly, the assailant is conspicuously absent from this hearing, as in many terrorism trials.
The magistrate continues to recount the facts for two and a half hours, without fail, a necessary preamble to the hearing. It also details the investigations which led to the arrest of the suspects who will be tried. Eight adults are accused of being involved, to varying degrees, in the death of the history and geography teacher.
Two of them, Azim Epsirkhanov and Naïm Boudaoud, friends of the assassin, are dismissed for complicity in terrorist assassination and face life imprisonment. The two young men, from Evreux, in pre-trial detention, took their places in the transparent glass accused's box on Monday morning, just before the opening of the trial.
At the call of the president of the special assize court, Azim Epsirkhanov stands up. The appearance of this young man of 23 is neat: he wears a dark blue suit and tie over a white shirt, a well-trimmed beard. As for Naïm Boudaoud, 22 years old, thin, in a tight gray sweater, he declares that he was enrolled in BTS and lived with his mother before being incarcerated.
Other juvenile faces appear among the six other defendants tried for criminal terrorist association, but who appear free. Some, like Louqmane Ingar, are still students. Only one woman appears: Priscilla Mangel, 36 years old, “sans profession”who exchanged numerous messages with Abdoullakh Anzorov, particularly in the days preceding the attack.
Each at one end of the dock, Abdelhakim Sefrioui and Brahim Chnina, two older men with short white hair on their heads, are accused of having participated “the production and dissemination of videos presenting false or distorted information intended to arouse a feeling of hatred” with regard to Samuel Paty.
Because the investigation by the investigating judges shows that it is these “videos” which fueled hatred and led to the assassination of the history-geography teacher, as the court recounts in its recall of the facts. Thus, from October 7, 2020, Brahim Chnina designates, in his publications on social networks, Samuel Paty as “a rogue professor”, in reaction to his daughter's confidences. The schoolgirl claims that her teacher showed caricatures of naked Mohammed during a moral and civic education course entitled “Dilemma situation: to be or not to be Charlie”. In reality, the teenager was absent that day. Tried behind closed doors with five other ex-college students by the Paris children's court, she was sentenced a year ago to 18 months in prison for slanderous denunciation. She will be heard as a witness at the trial at the end of November.
Two days after the broadcast of Brahim Chnina's videos, Abdoullakh Anzorov contacted him, as well as Priscilla Mangel. The discussions continue until the day of the incident. At the same time, the assailant continued his deadly quest and, the day before the assassination of Samuel Paty, went with Azim Epsirkhanov and Naïm Boudaoud to Rouen to buy a knife found at the crime scene. “It is under these conditions that the accused” are referred to the special assize court of Paris, underlines its president at the end of the reading.
“The people responsible are there”asserts, for her part, facing journalists, a lawyer for the Paty family. Virginie Le Roy believes that this trial should make it possible to understand “the gear” which led to the assassination of the teacher. His clients, in particular the mother of Samuel Paty, will be heard Friday afternoon. Some of his former colleagues also made the trip. “I need answers, it’s a bit therapeutic”declares a PE teacher at the end of this first day. “Is it that [les accusés] take responsibility for the rise of hatred within them? And then the attack, how was he prepared at the operational level? Did any defendants give advice?” he asks himself.
Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for Abdelhakim Sefrioui, an Islamist activist who finds himself in the dock, claims for his part that his client “has absolutely nothing to do with the commission of this attack, neither directly nor indirectly”. To shed light on the sequence of events which led to the assassination of Samuel Paty, the court has until December 20.
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