French court convicts 8 other Muslims in the 2020 murder and beheading of teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamic extremist (Graphic image)

France’s anti-terrorism court on Friday convicted eight Muslims of involvement in the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty outside his school near Paris four years ago, a horrific death that shocked the country. Paty, 47, was killed by an Islamic extremist outside his school on Oct. 16, 2020, days after showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression.

NY Post (h/t Marvin W) The assailant, an 18-year-old Muslim of Chechen origin, was shot to death by police. Those who have been on trial on terrorism charges at a special court in Paris since the end of November were accused, in some cases, of providing assistance to the perpetrator and, in others, of organizing a hate campaign online before the murder took place.

The 540-seat courtroom was packed for the verdict, which marked the final chapter of the Paty trial. Heavy surveillance was in place, with more than 50 police officers guarding the proceedings.

Families of the accused reacted with gasps, cries, shouts, and ironic clapping, prompting the judge to pause multiple times and call for silence. “They lied about my brother,” shouted one relative. Another woman, sobbing, exclaimed, “They took my baby from me,” before being escorted out by police officers.

The seven-judge panel met or went above most of the terms requested by prosecutors, citing “the exceptional gravity of the facts.”

Naïm Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, friends of the attacker, were convicted of complicity in murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison each. Neither can be paroled for two thirds of their term, about 10 years. Boudaoud was accused of driving the attacker to the school, while Epsirkhanov helped him procure weapons.

Brahim Chnina, 52, the Muslim father of the schoolgirl whose lies sparked the events leading to Paty’s death, was sentenced to 13 years for association with a terrorist enterprise. Prosecutors had sought 10 years for him.

Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a Muslim preacher, was given 15 years for organizing a hate campaign online against Paty. The shocking death of the 47-year-old teacher left an indelible mark on France, with several schools now named after him.

The trial had begun in late November. The defendants were accused of assisting a perpetrator or organizing a hate campaign online in lead-up to the murder.

At the time of the attack, there were protests in many Muslim countries and calls online for violence targeting France and the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The newspaper had republished its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad a few weeks before Paty’s death to mark the opening of the trial over deadly 2015 attacks on its newsroom by Islamic extremists. The cartoon images deeply offended many Muslims, who saw them as sacrilegious.

But the fallout from Paty’s killing reinforced the French state’s commitment to freedom of expression and its firm attachment to secularism in public life.

A so-called ‘Muslim scholar’ said: “The beheading of the French teacher by a Muslim teen was justified under sharia law and NOT considered a crime. His only transgression was that he carried out the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Mohammed, himself, instead of allowing it to be carried out by a shari’a court in an Islamic state.”

MEMRI Sheikh Al-Yousuf said that people should focus on the fact that Paty had been teaching people to “hate” the Prophet Mohammed, and he argued that France is undergoing a crisis, since “Islam is growing because of its moral values.” He also speculated that Samuel Paty would not have acted as he had if he had been familiar with the qualities of the Prophet Mohammed.