The defendants face a verdict for actions that led to the beheading

Eight people accused of encouraging the jihadist killing of French professor Samuel Paty are to learn their fate after a six-week trial in a Paris court.

They include the father of a schoolgirl whose lie about Paty’s alleged discrimination against Muslims in the classroom set in motion the events that led to her beheading in a street in October 2020.

Also on trial are a Muslim activist who led an online campaign against Paty, two childhood friends of Chechen killer Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped him acquire weapons, and four radicalized men with whom he exchanged messages on social media .

Anzorov was shot dead by police minutes after the 47-year-old history and geography teacher was killed outside his high school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Saint-Honorine.

He was moved by claims circulating on the internet that a few days earlier Paty had ordered Muslims to leave his class of 13-year-old boys before revealing obscene images of the Prophet Muhammad.

In fact, Paty had been teaching a lesson on freedom of expression and before showing one of the controversial images first published by Charlie Hebdo magazine, she advised students to look away if they feared they would be offended.

The school, named Z. Chnina, had not even been in class when this happened, but told her father that she had been punished for raising an objection.

The trial has focused on legal arguments about whether people who had no prior knowledge of the attack – or, in some cases, even of its author – could be guilty, in his words, of “terrorist association “.

Briefing the court this week, prosecution lawyers asked for prison terms of between 18 months suspended and 16 years for the accused, saying his actions had indirectly led to the atrocity.

However, the prosecution had also angered members of Paty’s family by refusing to seek maximum sentences and by downgrading some of the crimes charged.

During the trial, the court heard the first public testimony of the girl, Z. Chnina, who is now 17 years old.

A year ago he received a short suspended sentence for slander by a juvenile court, whose hearings were held behind closed doors.

“I want to apologize to the whole (Paty family) because if it wasn’t for my lies, they wouldn’t be here today,” she said, between sobs.

“And I want to apologize to my dad because when he made the video it was partly because of my lie.”

In the days after Paty’s free speech class, her father Brahim Chnina made videos denouncing the teacher by name. He also had the help of activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui to spread the campaign through his social networks.

Chnina and Sefrioui never sought action against Paty, and were unaware of Anzorov’s existence until after the murder.

But for the prosecution, nevertheless, they were guilty of “terrorist association”, because they knew about the possible consequences of their campaign.

“No one says they wanted Samuel Paty dead, but by lighting 1,000 digital fuses they knew one of them would lead to jihadist violence against the teacher,” according to the indictment.

The context of October 2020 was one of increased tensions over jihadist violence, after Charlie Hebdo republished some of the controversial cartoons of Muhammad. Five years earlier, most of the magazine’s staff had been killed in a jihadist gun attack on its Paris office.

Longer prison terms were sought in court this week for Anzorov’s two friends who accompanied him when he bought a fake knife and gun. One of them also drove Anzorov to school on the afternoon of the attack.

None of these defendants is a radicalized Muslim, and it was not established in court that they knew about Anzorov’s plans.

That is why the prosecution lowered the charge against them to “complicity in a terrorist attack” which carries a possible life sentence.

The other four defendants are people Anzorov chatted with, again without him ever revealing his intention to kill Paty.

One of them, a convert to Islam named Priscilla Mangel, admitted to making “provocative” comments online about the Paty case, but said she never would have made them if she had known Anzorov’s intentions.

“For me it was a trivial discussion with an anonymous person.”

For defense attorneys, none of the defendants would have faced criminal charges for what they said had it not been for Paty’s murder.

Therefore, the key legal question facing the court is whether the statements can become illegal based on what follows.