After six weeks of trial, the general prosecutor’s office must request, this Monday, December 16, 2024, against the eight accused involved, to varying degrees, in the deadly spiral which led to the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty upon leaving his college of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) on October 16, 2020.
The requisitions of the attorneys general, Nicolas Braconnay and Marine Valentin, are planned for the entire day of this Monday, December 16, 2024.
Two men, Naïm Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, aged 22 and 23 respectively, friends of the assailant Abdoullakh Anzorov, face the heaviest sentence, life imprisonment, for “complicity in terrorist assassination”.
Accused of having helped Anzorov, an 18-year-old Chechen radical Islamist, to obtain weapons and, concerning Boudaoud, of having led him to the area around the college on October 16, 2020, 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.
If the Paris Special Assize Court did not uphold the offense of complicity in terrorist assassination against them, the prosecution proposed on Thursday a reclassification into “criminal terrorist association”a crime punishable by 30 years of criminal imprisonment. The lawyers of the two accused, for their part, proposed a reclassification in “criminal association” under common law, an offense punishable by 10 years in prison.
Criminal terrorist association
The other six defendants are all being prosecuted for criminal terrorist association.
Islamist preacher Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65, and Brahim Chnina, 52, are accused of participating “the production and dissemination of videos presenting false or distorted information intended to arouse a feeling of hatred” against Samuel Paty.
“What I did is irreparable and unforgivable”admitted at the hearing Brahim Chnina, 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.
In reality, the schoolgirl had not attended Samuel Paty’s class and the teacher had not discriminated against his students.
Regarding his criminal responsibility, Brahim Chnina contested the accusations against him. “I am not part of a terrorist criminal association,” he argued.
Old veteran of Islamist activism, founder of the (now dissolved) pro-Hamas association “Cheikh-Yassine Collective”Abdelhakim Sefrioui also completely contested the accusations made against him.
Acte “abject”
If the investigation established that Abdoullakh Anzorov became aware of the controversy targeting Samuel Paty through the messages and the video published on October 7 and 8 by Brahim Chnina, nothing demonstrates that he saw the video posted by Abdelhakim Sefrioui on October 12.
“If my video hadn’t existed, it wouldn’t have changed anything” to the fate of Samuel Paty, dared Abdelhakim Sefrioui at the hearing.
Filmed in front of the entrance to the college where Samuel Paty worked, the video of the preacher evokes a “rogue teacher” having committed an act “abject”.
If the court did not uphold the offense of terrorist criminal association against these two accused, it would have the possibility of finding them guilty of the common law offense of criminal association or provocation to terrorism, aggravated by the use of an online communication service, an offense punishable by 7 years in prison and a fine of 100,000 euros.
Verdict expected Thursday or Friday
The four other accused (Yusuf Cinar, Ismaël Gamaev, Louqmane Ingar, all aged 22, and Priscilla Mangel, 36, the only woman accused), presented by the prosecution as members of the “jihadosphere” who gravitated around Abdoullakh Anzorov on social networks, all denied, with the exception of Ismaël Gamaev, being involved in the assassination of the professor.
If the court did not uphold the terrorist criminal association against them, it would have the possibility of finding them guilty of inciting terrorism or advocating terrorism, an offense punishable by seven years of imprisonment and 100,000 euros in fines. fine.
Defense lawyers will speak Tuesday and Wednesday. The verdict is expected Thursday or Friday.
