the assize court delivers its verdict this Friday

After seven weeks of hearings, the Paris Special Assize Court must announce its verdict on Friday evening against the eight accused involved, to varying degrees, in the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty by a young radical Chechen Islamist in 2020.

The verdict, very uncertain, risks dissatisfying the civil parties, outraged by the requisitions “too lenient” of the prosecution and the defense which requested the acquittal of most of the accused by contesting the“terrorist intent” of those involved. The court composed only of professional magistrates should make its decision known “from 8 p.m.”.

The prosecution requests sentences between 18 months of suspended prison time and 16 years of criminal imprisonment.

The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) requested sentences of between 18 months suspended prison sentence and 16 years of criminal imprisonment against the eight accused aged between 22 and 65. The Pnat asked the court for a downward reclassification of the offenses alleged against four of the eight accused. Exit thus the complicity in terrorist assassination, punishable by life imprisonment, which weighed on two «amis» – which they dispute – of the killer: Naïm Boudaoud, 22 years old and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23 years old.

The day before the attack, the three young people went to Rouen to buy a knife (not the one used to decapitate Samuel Paty) which would be found at the crime scene. At the hearing, Boudaoud and Epsirkhanov repeated that Anzorov had explained to them that this knife was “a gift” for his grandfather. On the day of the attack, October 16, 2020, Boudaoud, the only one who knew how to drive, accompanied the killer to an airsoft gun store then dropped him off near the college where Samuel Paty taught.

“Logistics support”

If the two young people formed “the logistical support Anzorov needed”it could not be demonstrated that they had knowledge of his deadly plan, indicated the prosecution which abandoned complicity and only retained the terrorist criminal association (AMT), punishable by 30 years of imprisonment. The Pnat magistrates requested 14 years of imprisonment with a two-thirds security period against Boudaoud and 16 years of imprisonment also with a two-thirds security period against Epsirkhanov.

Considered the instigators of the “hate campaign” who made Samuel Paty “a target”Brahim Chnina, 52 years old, and the Islamist preacher Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65 years old, are being prosecuted for AMT. The prosecution requested a sentence of 10 years of criminal imprisonment with a two-thirds security period against the first and 12 years of criminal imprisonment with a two-thirds security period against the second.

Brahim Chnina, father of the schoolgirl who lied when accusing the teacher of having discriminated against Muslim students in his class during a lesson on freedom of expression where he presented a caricature of Mohammed, posted messages and a video hostile to the professor from October 7. Abdelhakim Sefrioui, founder of the (now dissolved) pro-Hamas association “Cheikh-Yassine Collective”described Samuel Paty as “thug” in another video.

“Djiahdosphere”

But there is no proof that Anzorov saw Sefrioui’s video, his lawyers stressed, adding that they had not met Samuel Paty’s killer either. Chnina and Sefrioui who went together to Samuel Paty’s college on October 8 would not have acted together, their lawyers also put forward to contest the accusation of AMT against them. There was no“terrorist intent”according to them. Their digital campaign was “concerted”on the contrary believes the prosecution.

The other four accused, including a woman, belong to the “jihadosphere” who was in contact with Anzorov on social networks. While they are being prosecuted for AMT, the prosecution wanted a downward reclassification of the offenses for two of them: provocation of terrorism and 18 months suspended sentence required against Priscilla Mangel, 36 years old, and apology of terrorism and one year prison sentence requested against Yusuf Cinar, 22 years old.

The prosecution requested 5 years in prison including 18 months suspended against Ismaël Gamaev, 22 years old, (the only one of the eight accused to have admitted his guilt) and 3 years in prison including 2 years suspended against Louqmane Ingar, 22 years old.