Samuel Paty: Teenager apologises in court for false claims leading to teacher’s murder

A teenager who falsely accused her teacher of inappropriate behavior, which contributed to his murder by an Islamist radical, apologized to his family in a French court on Tuesday.

Eight individuals have been on trial since November, charged with helping create a climate of hatred that led to the brutal killing of Samuel Paty, a French teacher, who was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen radical outside Paris in 2020. Among those on trial is Brahim Chnina, the 52-year-old Moroccan father of the teenager who testified on Tuesday.

At the time of the incident, the girl, then 13, falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. She was not present in the classroom when the alleged incident occurred.

“I would like to apologize to the family,” the now 17-year-old said in court. “I destroyed your lives, I am sorry.”

Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a 65-year-old French-Moroccan Islamist activist, is also on trial. He and Chnina spread the teenager’s lies on social media with the aim of “designating a target,” “provoking hatred,” and “preparing the ground for further crimes,” according to the prosecution. Both men have been in pre-trial detention for four years.

The teenager explained that she fabricated the story to explain her two-day suspension from school due to behavioral issues and repeated absences. “I was in panic and stress,” she told the court. “I told her I had been in class and wasn’t happy with what happened there, that the teacher excluded me, and that we looked at cartoons.”

Sefrioui then posted a video calling Paty a “teaching thug” and filmed an “interview” with the girl outside the school, coaching her to repeat the false claims. “I thought somebody would stop me in my lying, but nobody ever said that I wasn’t in class,” the girl admitted in court.

She maintained her false story even after Paty’s death, but eventually confessed during 30 hours of interrogation after her arrest. In court, she expressed remorse, tearfully acknowledging her role in the tragedy. “Without my lies, none of us would be here,” she said, sobbing. “I used my father’s naivety and kindness.”

She also mentioned that her father had always taught her to respect teachers, a statement that caught the court’s presiding judge off guard. The teenager was sentenced to 18 months of probation in December 2023 for slander.

Paty’s murder occurred just weeks after the Charlie Hebdo magazine re-published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as part of an ethics class on free speech. The cartoons had previously sparked the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks, in which Islamist gunmen killed 12 people at the magazine’s offices.