A French court has convicted eight persons for their actions that led to the beheading of a middle-aged school teacher in Paris in 2020.
The school teacher was accused of caricaturing Prophet Muhammad, in October 2020.
Seven men and a woman have been convicted in connection with Samuel Paty’s beheading in a Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte Honorine.
Days after Samuel Paty, 47, allegedly showed his pupils the caricatures in October 2020, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, stabbed and beheaded him outside his school near Paris.
As the killer was shot down by police shortly after the incident, the trial went on for eight people who provided him support or played a role in a way.
Among those convicted on Friday was the father of a student whose false account of Paty’s use of the caricatures triggered a wave of social media posts targeting the middle-school teacher.
The court sentenced Brahim Chnina to 13 years in prison for criminal terrorist association, according to broadcaster Franceinfo.
Chnina had published videos falsely accusing the teacher of disciplining his daughter for complaining about the class, naming Paty and identifying his school.
Paty’s murder was heavily led by social media posts that had falsely claimed that the teacher showed obscene pictures of the founder of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, to his students during a class on free speech, BBC News reported.
The rumours also floated on the internet that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave the class before showing Prophet Muhammad’s pictures.
Flared up by the fake claims, 18-year-old Russian Muslim extremist Abdoullakh Anzorov beheaded Paty at a secondary school in the suburb.
Eleven days after the class on free speech, Anzorov attacked Paty and showed the teacher’s head on social media.
The rumour first began after a 13-year-old student lied about Paty followed by the viral claims on social media.
To prevent her father from discovering that she was suspended over studies, the girl fabricated a story about Paty accusing him of excluding her from the class so that the teacher could display “a photograph of the Prophet naked”, The Guardian had reported.
Chnina had campaigned against Paty on social media and also took the help of of radical Islam activist, Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who has been sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.
Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, the two friends of Abdoullakh Anzorov who were with the killer when he bought weapons, have been convicted to 16 years of imprisonment.
(With inputs from Reuters)
