At France the trial of eight adults, seven men and one woman, who are accused of contributing to the hate campaign that led to the murder, on October 16, 2020, of Samuel Pati, 47, a professor of history and geography, began today before a special criminal court in Paris.

The killer, Abdullah Anzorov, an 18-year-old Chechen-born Russian Islamist who had asylum-seeker status in France, is the big absentee at the trial: he was killed by police shortly after he stabbed and beheaded the professor in Conflans-Saint-Honorin, in Paris region.

The hearing began with the verification of the identity of the accused.

Two young friends of the attacker will be held accountable for “aiding and abetting terrorist murder”, a crime punishable by life imprisonment. The six other defendants, three of whom are under judicial review, are not in custody and are on trial for participating in a terrorist criminal gang, a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Among the defendants are Brahim Snina, a 52-year-old Moroccan, the father of the 13-year-old student who had falsely stated – absent from class – that Samuel Pati had asked the Muslim students to leave the classroom before showing caricatures of Muhammad, and Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a 65-year-old Franco-Moroccan militant Islamist.

The two, who have been in pretrial detention for four years, reproduced the teenager’s lies en masse on social media seeking, according to the indictment, to “set a target”, “incite feelings of hatred” and “so prepare crimes”.

Both are accused of participating in a terrorist association of criminals.

“They want to make Abdelhakim Sefriwi pay for all his militant work”, although he “did not know the perpetrator” of the attack and “did not participate in it”, argued before the hearing one of his lawyers, Vincent Brengar.

Brahim’s daughter Snina and five other former students were sentenced last fall to sentences ranging from 14 months suspended to two years in prison, with six months suspended, at the end of a closed-door trial by juvenile court.

Anzorov’s two friends, Naim Bundaud, 22, and Chechen-born Russian Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, who face life in prison for aiding and abetting a terrorist attack, are mainly accused of accompanying Anzorov the day before the attack in a Rouen cutlery factory, about 130 kilometers west of Paris.

The murder of Samuel Paty – which occurred while the trial was underway for the January 7, 2015 attacks against the editorial board of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – shocked French society

“The tragic engineering that resulted in the martyrdom of Samuel Paty reveals the depth of Islamist infiltration in France and its permeability to terrorism. Her detailed report at a public hearing must, not only result in the strict condemnation of those who contributed to her, but also allow our society to be aware of a mortal danger,” said Thibaut de Montbrial and Pauline Ragaud, Michael’s lawyers. Pati, one of the murdered professor’s sisters.

Francis Spiner, lawyer for other members of Samuel Pati’s family, expressed the hope that “justice will rise to the height of the crime that was committed, an event unimaginable in the history of the Republic.”

The trial is scheduled to last until December 20.