Assassins incited

Teacher beheaded: Islamists on trial in Paris

Several radical Muslims are currently on trial for a smear campaign that led to the brutal murder of a history teacher.

(Bild: AFP/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP / picturedesk.com)

Four years after the murder of French teacher Samuel Paty by a young Islamist, a trial against those suspected of being jointly responsible began in Paris on Monday. One of the main defendants is Brahim C., the father of a then 13-year-old pupil who triggered the serious smear campaign against Paty with a lie. 

The 47-year-old history teacher Paty had shown Mohammed cartoons in a lesson on freedom of expression in a secondary school in a wealthy Paris suburb. Beforehand, he had given his pupils the option of leaving the room if they did not want to see them. This precaution proved to be his undoing.

Father launched smear campaign against teacher
Brahim C.'s daughter, who had not even attended class that day, later told her father that the teacher had deliberately sent Muslim pupils out of the class to show the others humiliating depictions of Muhammad. The accused spread this version together with others on online services, and the smear campaign took its course.

The school of murdered teacher Samuel Paty. The French motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" is emblazoned above the entrance.

(Bild: AFP/DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP / picturedesk.com)

Brahim C., who has been in custody for four years, has been charged with participating in a terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces 30 years in prison. His daughter and other minors had already been sentenced to a suspended sentence in 2023.

18-year-old Isamist beheaded Paty with a knife
Paty had told his colleagues at the time that he felt "threatened by local Islamists" and repeatedly asked for a lift after school - even though he usually walked. On October 16, 2020, there was no one to give him a lift in the car - it was the last day of school before the vacations.

The case caused a shockwave in France and led to numerous expressions of grief.

(Bild: AP)

Lawyer Ouadie Elhamamouchi is defending the hate preacher Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who is also on trial.

(Bild: AFP)

The perpetrator who ambushed him after school and killed him with a knife was an 18-year-old Islamist who had become radicalized a few months earlier. He did not know the teacher and paid money to younger pupils to show him the teacher. Abdulach Ansorov, who came from Chechnya, was shot dead by the police. In an audio recording, he boasted that he had "avenged the prophet".

Friends of the perpetrator on trial
The accused also include two of his friends who had accompanied him to buy a knife in Rouen the day before the crime. They are accused of aiding and abetting a murder motivated by terrorism. They face a life sentence.

"The tragic dynamic that led to the murder of Samuel Paty illustrates the extent of Islamist influence in France and its links to terrorism," explained the lawyers of one of Samuel Paty's sisters at the start of the trial.

The case had caused a shock wave in France. Paty's school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, north-west of Paris, has since been renamed after the teacher who was killed.