Seven people accused including six for “complicity in terrorist assassination”

The parent of student Brahim Chnina and the Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui were accused Wednesday for “complicity in terrorist assassination” in the investigation into the death of the teacher Samuel Paty, announced the French national anti-terrorism prosecution.

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Two friends of the assailant, Naim B. (18) and Azim E. (19), were charged with the same count. A third relative, Yussuf C., is being prosecuted for “terrorist association with a view to committing crimes against persons”.

All have been remanded in custody except Brahim Chnina, who has however been detained pending a debate on this issue.

The two 14 and 15-year-old schoolchildren accused of having appointed a teacher to the assailant for remuneration were also charged with “complicity in murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise”, but they were left free under judicial supervision. .

Samuel Paty, 47, professor of history and geography in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, 25 kilometers north-west of Paris, was beheaded on Friday by Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old refugee of Chechen Russian origin, for showing caricatures of Muhammad in early October during two courses on freedom of expression.

Mr. Chnina, 48, and Mr. Sefrioui, 61, are accused of having “named as a target on social networks” the teacher “by means of a maneuver and a reinterpretation of the facts”, said anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr Sefrioui’s lawyer told AFP that before the professor’s murder his client “had no idea what was going to happen”.

According to him, “there was no contact” between Anzorov and his client, and “nothing even says that Anzorov saw his video”.

“There are sponsors who are behind this attack and who are certainly delighted to see that the investigation is focused on peripheral accomplices, who never wanted such a horror”, estimated the lawyer.

According to him, “the dangerous people, who trained Anzorov, are safe and will train others.”

In a message sent on social networks after posting a photo of his victim, Anzorov announced in a hesitant Russian that he had “avenged the prophet”, accusing the professor of having “shown him in an insulting manner”.

The assassination of Samuel Paty is part of a “context of calls for murders” launched since the republication of the cartoons of Mohammed by the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in early September, before the opening of the trial of the January 2015 attacks in Paris. , underlined the anti-terrorism prosecutor.