Beheading of teacher Paty Eight defendants sentenced to long prison terms
The barbaric act caused international horror: a teacher was beheaded in France for showing cartoons of Muhammad. Now the sentence has been passed.
20.12.2024, 21:45
dpa
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- A French anti-terrorism court on Friday convicted eight people of involvement in the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty just over four years ago.
- The defendants include friends of the attacker who was killed after the crime on October 16, 2020, and two men
- They are accused of inciting against Paty with false information.
Eight people have been sentenced in connection with the Islamist-motivated murder of teacher Samuel Paty. According to several French media outlets, the judges in Paris have sentenced them to between one and sixteen years in prison.
Around four years ago, 47-year-old history teacher Paty was killed and beheaded by an 18-year-old in a Paris suburb. The police shot and killed the perpetrator, who had Russian-Chechen roots. The crime was classified as an Islamist-motivated act of terrorism and caused international outrage.
Before the crime, there had been incitement against the teacher on the internet because he had shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class on the subject of freedom of expression. This incitement is said to have driven the attacker to commit his crime.
15 years in prison for Islamist preacher
Two friends of the perpetrator have now been sentenced to sixteen years in prison for involvement in a terrorist attack. They are said to have been privy to the plans and accompanied the perpetrator to buy weapons and drove him to the crime scene. They claimed until the end that they had no idea of the true intentions.
The other convicts include the father of the schoolgirl who is said to have circulated the accusations against Paty and an Islamist preacher. They now face 13 and 15 years in prison respectively.