France: Muslim father stands trial for spreading falsehoods that led to a jihadi's beheading of a teacher accused of blasphemy

Image: Jihad Watch

The killing began with a lie. In October 2020, Islamist terrorist tracked down and beheaded Professor Samuel Paty as he left school on the final day before the half-term break.

In the days leading up to his murder, Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was targeted by a fierce online harassment campaign. This campaign ignited after a 13-year-old student alleged he had discriminated against Muslim students during a lesson on moral and civic education.

The girl told her father that Paty had instructed Muslim students to leave the classroom at Bois-d’Aulne secondary school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris, while he showed the class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

In reality, the girl was absent from Paty’s class that day; she had fabricated the story to cover up her suspension from school for misconduct.

Paty used the images as part of an ethics lesson to discuss free speech laws in France, framing it as a discussion on moral “dilemmas.” He posed the question “to be or not to be Charlie?” referencing the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag, which emerged to show solidarity with the newspaper after a 2015 terrorist attack on its offices that left 12 dead.

Contrary to the girl's claim, Paty did not ask students to leave the room; instead, he allowed anyone who might find the images offensive to avert their eyes.

The girl couldn’t have anticipated that her story would set off a chain of events leading 18-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Chechen, to travel 100 kilometers from Normandy to kill Paty, after her enraged father posted the fabricated story on social media.

On Monday, her father, Brahim Chnina, will stand trial alongside seven other adults—six men and one woman—in connection with the murder. Chnina faces charges of association with a terrorist organization, having allegedly incited a social media campaign against Paty, including posting videos identifying Paty and his workplace and singling him out as a target. Prosecutors allege Chnina was in contact with Anzorov nine times before the murder, a charge he denies.

(This Article was originally published by Jihad Watch)