- Teacher Samuel Paty was killed in France 2020 after he showed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in a class.
- Six teenagers have been convicted in connection with his murder.
- One of the teenagers’ lawyer said she “doesn’t forgive herself” for telling a lie that incited fury.
Six teenagers have been found guilty in connection with the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty in France in 2020.
Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was killed outside his school near Paris. He had showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which was the target of a deadly terrorist attack by Islamic extremists, in a class about free speech.
News spread on social media about the class, and Paty was stabbed to death and decapitated by Abdoullakh Anzorov, a radicalized 18-year-old Islamist of Chechen origin who came to France as a child. He was shot dead at the scene.
The trial was held of the six co-conspirators was held behind closed doors due to their young age.
A girl who was 13 at the time was convicted of slander and making false accusations about what happened in class, the Associated Press reported.
She had told her parents that Paty asked Muslim students to leave the room before showing the images, but she had not attended the class that day.
Her father made an angry social media video about her claims, which gained traction and incited fury against Paty.
Five boys, who were between 14 and 15 at the time of the murder, have been found guilty of staking Paty out and helping his attacker identify him.
All of the teenagers acknowledged wrongdoing and said that they didn’t know Paty would be killed, per AP.
One of the teenagers received a six-month prison term, which they will be allowed to serve under house arrest with an electronic bracelet.
The rest received suspended sentences ranging from two to three years, mandating they stay in school or employment.
The girl’s lawyer, Mbeko Tebula, said that she “doesn’t forgive herself for this lie” and did not imagine the “horror” that would unfold, according to AP.
He said she will “try to rebuild herself as a woman” but will live with “permanent guilt.”
Dylan Slama, lawyer of one of the defendants, said, per Deutsche Welle: “He was 15 at the time and anything but radicalized. He did this out of immaturity, stupidity, and peer pressure and didn’t know what he was getting himself into.”
“At the time, he hadn’t given secularism much thought, but now he strongly supports it,” the lawyer said.
A lawyer representing Paty’s family, Virginie Le Roy, expressed disappointment that the punishment wasn’t harsher and said the sentences are “a bad signal to the family of Samuel, a bad signal to the students, and a bad signal to teachers,” per AP.
