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Opening of the trial of eight people involved in the assassination of Samuel Paty
The trial of eight adults, seven men and one woman, accused of having contributed to the hate campaign which led to the assassination on October 16, 2020 of Samuel Paty, 47, professor of history and geography in Conflans-Sainte- Honorine (Yvelines), opened on Monday before the Paris Special Assize Court. The assassin, Abdoullakh Anzorov, a young 18-year-old Russian radical Islamist of Chechen origin, beneficiary of asylum seeker status in France , is largely absent from the trial: he was killed by the police shortly after having stabbed and beheaded the professor. The hearing, very formal, began by verifying the identity of the accused. Two young friends of the assailant must answer for “complicity in terrorist assassination”, a crime punishable by life imprisonment. The six other accused, three of whom, under judicial supervision, appear free, are being tried for participation in a criminal terrorist association, a crime punishable by 30 years of criminal imprisonment. Among the accused are Brahim Chnina, a 52-year-old Moroccan, the father of the 13-year-old schoolgirl who falsely claimed – she was absent from class – that Samuel Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his class before showing caricatures of Mohammed, and Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a Franco-Moroccan Islamist activist aged 65. These two men, in pre-trial detention for four years, massively relayed the teenager's lies on social networks with the aim, according to the prosecution, of “designating a target”, “arousing a feeling of hatred ” and “thus preparing several crimes”. They are both accused of participation in a terrorist criminal association. “We are seeking to make Abdelhakim Sefrioui pay for all of his activist work” but “he did not know the author” of the attack and “did not participate in it”, affirmed before the hearing one of his lawyers, Me Vincent Brengarth. “It is necessary to resist the call of public opinion,” he added. Brahim Chnina's daughter and five other ex-college students were sentenced last fall to sentences ranging from 14 months to suspended sentence of two years, including six months, following a closed trial before the children's court. – “Mortal danger” – Anzorov's two friends, Naïm Boudaoud, 22, and Russian of Chechen origin Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, who face life imprisonment for complicity in terrorist assassination, are notably accused of having accompanied Anzorov in a cutlery factory in Rouen the day before the attack. The assassination of Samuel Paty – which occurred in the middle of the trial of the attacks of January 7, 2015 against the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo – constituted a shock wave in French society “The tragic mechanism which resulted in the martyrdom of Samuel Paty reveals the depth of Islamist entryism in France and its porosity with terrorism. Its exposition in detail in public hearing must not only result in the severe condemnation of those who committed it. competed, but also allow an awareness of our society in the face of a mortal danger”, wish Thibault de Montbrial and Pauline Ragot, lawyers for Mickaëlle Paty, one of the sisters of the murdered professor. Francis Szpiner, lawyer for other members of the family of Samuel Paty, hoped “that justice would live up to the crime that was committed, an unprecedented fact in the history of the Republic”. The hearing was chaired by Franck Zientara, an experienced magistrate who notably led the trial of the Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray attack. The trial should be an opportunity to evoke the figure of Samuel Paty, a man “lonely, frightened, in dire straits”, according to the investigating magistrates. “I am threatened by local Islamists,” he wrote to his colleagues on October 10, 2020, four days after his course on freedom of expression. At no time will the threatened teacher benefit from police protection. He, who is used to returning home on foot, asks colleagues to accompany him by car the four days preceding his assassination. Except on October 16, the day before school holidays, when no motorized teacher is available. A sad symbol of the feeling of insecurity that inhabited him, a paltry hammer was discovered in his backpack after his assassination. The trial is planned until December 20.aje/bfa/tes
