The defendants face sentencing for actions that led to beheading

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

They include the father of a student who lied about Paty's alleged anti-Muslim discrimination in the classroom, setting off a chain of events that led to his 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-born killer Abdulla Anzorov who allegedly helped him obtain weapons, and four extremist 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.

His enthusiasm was fueled by allegations circulating online that Paty had only days earlier ordered Muslims to leave his class of 13-year-olds before revealing obscene images of the Prophet Muhammad.

In fact, Paty was teaching a lesson on freedom of expression, and before showing one of the controversial images published by Charlie Hebdo for the first time, he advised pupils to avert their eyes if they feared being offended.

The student, named Z. Shanina, was not in class when this happened, but she told her father that she was being punished because she raised an objection.

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

Summarizing the matter before the court this week, prosecution lawyers asked for a suspended prison sentence of between 18 months and 16 years for the defendants, saying their actions indirectly led to the atrocities being committed.

However, the prosecution also angered Paty's family members by refusing to press for maximum penalties and downgrading of some of the crimes charged.

During the trial, the court heard the first public testimony of Z. Shanina, now 17 years old.

A year ago, the Juvenile Court sentenced her to a short suspended prison sentence for defamation, and the hearings were held behind closed doors.

“I want to apologize to all (Patty's family) because if it wasn't for my lies, they wouldn't be here today,” she said through tears.

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

In the days following Patty's freedom of expression suspension, her father, Ibrahim Shanina, filmed videos denouncing the teacher by name. He also sought the help of activist Abdel Hakim Sefrioui to spread the campaign through his social media network.

Shanina and Sefrioui never called for action against Paty, nor were they aware of Anzorov's presence until the killing occurred.

But for the trial, they were nonetheless guilty of “terrorist association,” because they were aware of the potential consequences of their campaign.

“No one says they wanted to kill Samuel Paty, but by lighting 1,000 digital fuse, they knew one of them would lead to jihadist violence against the teacher,” the prosecution report said.

The context in October 2020 was one of rising tensions over jihadist violence, after Charlie Hebdo republished some controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Five years ago, most of the magazine's staff were killed in an armed jihadist attack on their office in Paris.

A court was asked this week to hand down the longest prison sentence to Anzorov's two friends who accompanied him when he bought a fake knife and gun. Someone also took Anzorov to school on the afternoon of the attack.

None of these defendants was a radical Muslim, and it was not proven in court that they knew about Anzorov's plans.

For this reason, the Public Prosecution reduced the charge against them to “complicity in a terrorist attack,” which could be punished by up to life imprisonment.

The other four defendants are people Anzorov spoke to via chat lines, again without revealing his intention to kill Paty.

One of them, a woman who converted to Islam called Priscilla Mangel, admitted to making “provocative” statements online about Paty's case, but said she would never have made them if she had known Anzorov's intentions.

“For me this was a calm discussion with an unknown person.”

For the defense lawyers, none of the defendants would have faced criminal proceedings for what they said had Patty not been killed.

So the main legal question facing the court is whether the statements can become unlawful depending on the following.