France - Verdicts expected in trial for murder of teacher Paty in Paris
The barbaric murder of teacher Samuel Paty three years ago caused a deep wound in France that has still not healed. The verdicts expected this Friday in the first trial into the Islamist-motivated act of terror are unlikely to change this. Six pupils who are alleged to have had something to do with the act of bloodshed had to stand trial before a Paris juvenile court.
On October 16, 2020, an 18-year-old killed and then beheaded the history teacher in a Paris suburb. The police shot and killed the perpetrator, who had Russian-Chechen roots.
Teenagers in the dock
Prior to the crime, there had been incitement against Paty on the internet because he had shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class on the subject of freedom of expression. Five pupils are said to have helped the attacker to recognize the 47-year-old teacher. The youngsters, who were 14 and 15 years old at the time of the attack, are accused of forming a criminal organization.
A 13-year-old schoolgirl at the time has to answer for a false accusation that is said to have been the trigger for the crime. According to the allegation, she talked about a presentation of the controversial cartoons at home, even though she was not at school that day.
In France, children are generally considered to be of criminal age from the age of 13. All defendants face up to two and a half years in prison. The public was excluded from the trial. What the pupils said about what happened did not get out. Further information about the circumstances that led to the crime will therefore not be available to the public until the trial of eight adult defendants at the end of 2024. Some of them are said to have directly assisted the attacker in preparing his crime.
Attacker offered 300 euros
The five accused pupils became accomplices more by chance, reported the magazine "L'Obs", referring to their interrogations. The assassin turned up at the school and offered one of the pupils 300 euros to show him who the teacher was. He spoke ill of Paty and said he wanted to force him to apologize to the Muslims. The pupil took up the offer and involved some of his comrades. The young people are said to have suspected that the assassin was up to no good - but they apparently had no idea of the murder plot.
Even before the trial began, France was once again shaken up by a fatal attack on a teacher. On 13 October, an Islamist radicalized 20-year-old stabbed a teacher to death in a school in the northern French town of Arras. The authorities had targeted the young man as a threat. As with the brutal attack on Paty, France saw its secular state under attack and in particular one of its main pillars, the national education system. Within three years, the country had not managed to better protect its teachers, some complained.
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- Despite the upcoming verdicts in the trial for the Islamist-motivated murder of teacher Samuel Paty in Paris, many believe that the deep wound inflicted on France three years ago will not fully heal.
- The Police in France took swift action when an 18-year-old perpetrator, with Russian-Chechen roots, murdered and beheaded teacher Paty in a Paris suburb, eventually shooting and killing the attacker.
- The trial in France for the six teenagers alleged to have played a role in the terror attack on teacher Paty in Paris has highlighted the complexities of handling such cases, especially when dealing with minors who are accused of forming a criminal organization.
- The impact of the controversy surrounding the prophet Mohammed and the showing of caricatures in a French classroom extended beyond the violent incident, as France grappled with the increasing threat of terrorism and the need to protect its educators and citizens.
Source: www.stern.de
