eight defendants tried before the special assize court, for which they are accused

JUSTICE – A new chapter opens four years after the assassination of Samuel Paty. The Paris Special Assize Court will judge from this Monday, November 4, seven men and a woman involved in the campaign of hatred and intimidation which preceded the death of the history and geography professor.

The assassin, Abdoullakh Anzorov, a young 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, beneficiary of asylum seeker status in France, will be largely absent from the trial: he was killed by the police shortly after his act.

Before his death, Samuel Paty, 47, professor at the Bois-d'Aulne Conflans-Sainte-Honorine college (Yvelines), was the target of an intense cyberharassment campaign. Originally, there was the lie of a 13-year-old student wrongly accusing Professor Paty of discrimination against Muslims.

A lie that leads to assassination

In reality, she had not attended the history-geography class and her lie, taken up massively on social networks by unscrupulous adults, led to the “ killing »in the words of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat), by Samuel Paty.

The young girl and five other ex-college students were sentenced last fall to sentences ranging from 14 months suspended to two years including six months in prison. Virginie Le Roy, lawyer for the Paty family, regretted a hearing “ disappointing » with “ answers (which) were missing from the families”. Will the trial which opens on Monday bring more?

The schoolgirl's father, Brahim Chnina, a 52-year-old Moroccan, will be one of the main accused alongside the Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65 years old.

Heavy penalties incurred

The two men, in pre-trial detention for four years, relayed, according to the prosecution, the teenager's lies on social networks, triggering a surge of hatred against the professor. Prosecuted for terrorist conspiracy, they face 30 years of criminal imprisonment.

“My client intends to explain the merits of the case and demonstrate that he has absolutely no link, directly or indirectly, with this heinous attack which he has condemned since the first day”explains Me Ouadie Elhamamouchi, Abdelhakim Sefrioui's lawyer.

Two friends of the terrorist, Naïm Boudaoud, 22, and the Russian of Chechen origin Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, are appearing for complicity in terrorist assassination, a crime punishable by life imprisonment.

The day before the attack, they notably accompanied Anzorov to a cutlery in Rouen to purchase a knife corresponding to the one found near his corpse. Naïm Boudaoud was also with Anzorov for the purchase, a few hours before the crime, of two Airsoft pistols and steel balls in a store in Cergy.

All deny their involvement in the assassination

“Nearly three years of judicial investigation have never established that Naïm Boudaoud was aware of the slightest criminal plan of the assailant”declare to AFP Messrs Adel Fares and Hiba Rizkallah, who contest “ complicity » of their customer.

The court will also try three people who belonged to Snapchat groups revolving around Abdoullakh Anzorov. The Turk Yusuf Cinar, the Russian of Chechen origin Ismaïl Gamaev and the Reunionese Louqmane Ingar, all three aged 22, according to the accusation exchanged messages with jihadist content with Anzorov.

Yusuf Cinar was at the time of the events “ a young man of 18, out of school and in a very fragile state. Not only was he never aware of the terrorist's plan, but he never approved the act committed, nor shared any radical ideology”indicates his lawyer, Me Lucile Collot.

The only woman among the accused, Priscilla Mangel, 36, known to belong to the radical Islamist movement, “ comforted » Anzorov in her project even if she did not know its nature, assures the prosecution. The trial is scheduled until December 20.

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