PARIS, FRANCE: A French court has sentenced eight people to prison terms ranging from one to 16 years for their role in a hate campaign that culminated in the murder of a teacher who showed blasphemous caricatures of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in class. , local media reported.
Days after Samuel Paty, 47, showed the caricatures to his students in October 2020, an 18-year-old Chechen attacker stabbed and beheaded him outside his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, near Paris.
The attacker was shot dead by police moments later.
Among those sentenced Friday was the father of a student whose false account of Paty’s use of blasphemous caricatures sparked a wave of social media posts targeting the middle school teacher.
The court sentenced Brahim Chnina to 13 years in prison for terrorist conspiracy, according to the Franceinfo channel.
Chnina had posted videos falsely accusing the teacher of disciplining her daughter for complaining about the class, naming Paty and tagging her school.
Abdelhakim Sefrioui, founder of a radical Islamist organization, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Sefrioui and Chnina were found guilty of inciting hatred against Paty.
Sefrioui’s lawyer said his client would appeal the decision, according to French media.
Two associates of Paty’s assassin, Abdullakh Anzorov, were also convicted. Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov were sentenced to 16 years in prison for complicity in terrorist assassination. Both had denied any wrongdoing, according to Franceinfo.
Last year, a court found Chnina’s daughter and five other teenagers guilty of participating in a premeditated plot and helping to prepare an ambush.
Chnina’s daughter, who was not in Paty’s class when the blasphemous caricatures were shown, was found guilty of false accusations and slanderous remarks.
French media reported that the 13-year-old made the allegations after her parents asked why she was suspended from school for two days.
