One year to sixteen years in prison required for those accused of the assassination

She does not believe in their complicity in the acts of terrorist assassination. But she maintains her accusations of terrorist criminal association. At the time of the requisitions of the trial of the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty, the attorney general Marine Valentin asked the special assize court of Paris to rule out this notion of complicity concerning Naïm Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, for whom sixteen years of prison were required.

Aged 22 and 23, they were friends of the attacker Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Chechen radical Islamist killed by the police in October 2020. The magistrate preferred to focus on the facts of criminal association, a crime punishable by thirty years of imprisonment. “They were fully aware of his jihadist beliefs and provided him with the material conditions to implement them,” insisted the magistrate. Sentences of one year in prison to sixteen years in prison were requested.

Accused of having helped Anzorov to obtain weapons and, concerning Boudaoud, of having led him on October 16, 2020 to the surroundings of the college where Samuel Paty taught history and geography, the two young people claimed at the hearing to have completely unaware of their friend's murderous intentions and have never stopped proclaiming their innocence. “Through their active and almost permanent participation”, Naïm Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov “allowed Abdoullakh Anzorov to assassinate Samuel Paty”, assured Marine Valentin. “They were the logistical support Anzorov needed for his murderous act. »

“They knew” what it would lead to

Concerning the Islamist preacher Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65 years old, and Brahim Chnina, 52 years old, accused of having participated “in the development and dissemination of videos presenting false or distorted information intended to arouse a feeling of hatred” against of Samuel Paty, the other general counsel Nicolas Braconnay requested that the court chaired by Franck Zientara find them guilty of terrorist criminal association. “No one says that (Messrs. Sefrioui and Chnina) wanted the death of Samuel Paty but, by lighting thousands of digital fuses, they knew that one of them would lead to jihadist violence against the blasphemous professor,” argued Nicolas Braconnay.

Brahim Chnina is the father of the schoolgirl who lied by falsely accusing Samuel Paty of having discriminated against Muslim students in his class during a lesson on freedom of expression where he presented a caricature of Mohammed. In reality, the schoolgirl had not attended this class and the teacher had not discriminated against any of his students. She apologized for it.