France charges four more students over teacher’s beheading

Four teenage students have been charged in France over the killing of Samuel Paty, including three for allegedly pointing out the teacher to his murderer, a judical source said Thursday.

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Three other pupils were charged with complicity earlier this month over the beheading last month of Paty, who had shown his students cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as part of a lesson on free speech.

Three of the four students charged Thursday were suspected of identifying Paty to his killer, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, who then tracked him down and beheaded him in a street near his school.

The three, who are between 13 and 14 years old, are being charged with “complicity in a terrorist murder,” the source said.

Candles are lit at a makeshift memorial as people gather to pay homage to Samuel Paty, the French teacher who was beheaded on the streets of the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, as part of a national tribute, in Nice, France, on October 21, 2020. (Reuters)

The fourth is the daughter of Brahim Chnina, who launched a virulent online campaign against Paty denouncing the teacher’s use of the cartoons published by satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

She has been charged with “slanderous denunciation” of Paty after relating her version of events in the classroom, though she did not actually attend his civics lesson.

Paty’s murder sparked a torrent of outrage that prompted President Emmanuel Macron to crack down on extremism and violence in a country reeling from a wave of extremist attacks since 2015 that have killed more than 250 people.

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