France : un premier procès de l’affaire Samuel Paty
France: the first trial in the Samuel Paty case
Six minors appear in closed session before the juvenile court. Without them, the teacher would not have been murdered. They face up to two and a half years in prison.
Six of them, all minors, have been appearing before the Paris juvenile court since Monday. Given their age, thirteen to fifteen at the time of the events, they will be tried behind closed doors. When they arrived at the courthouse, the former schoolboys, who are appearing without bail, wore masks and dark glasses to protect their identity.
Yet it is a trial that has just begun that is of interest to the whole of France.
Without these six, Samuel Paty, who was murdered three years ago, would still be alive. The court will have to determine the extent of each person's responsibility in the chain of events that led to the beheading of the history and geography teacher as he was leaving his lycée in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the Yvelines department.
First there was the young girl, aged thirteen at the time, who caused the entire chain of events. She accused the teacher of stigmatising Muslims by showing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed "completely naked" in class. She fails to mention that Samuel Paty asked anyone who might feel offended to leave the classroom.
And with good reason: she wasn't in the class. The accusation against the teacher was just a diversion, as she had just been expelled from school for two days for bad behaviour. But her father believed her. And fuelled a hate campaign on social networks.
The only girl in the group, she appears in court for "slanderous denunciation".
On 16 October 2020, the terrorist, Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Islamist of Chechen origin, arrived on the outskirts of the school.
But how could he recognise the teacher? He offered a handful of teenagers money to identify Samuel Paty. For three hundred euros, they agreed. They believed, they argued at the time of the investigation, that it was simply a question of filming him to "shame him" and "force him to apologise". They had not perceived the danger of what they believed to be a "delirium".
They are charged with "criminal conspiracy to prepare aggravated violence".
This trial will be followed by another, in a year's time. This time it will be the adults. In the absence of the terrorist, who was shot dead by the police, eight defendants, including the father of the schoolgirl, will be tried by the assizes. The six teenagers, given their age, face a reduced sentence of two and a half years maximum.
BBM
The trial will take place behind closed doors and is expected to continue until December 8.
www.rfi.fr
