At the start of the appeal trial against four defendants in the murder of Samuel Paty, the lawyer for one of them accused the history and geography teacher, who was beheaded by a Chechen Islamist in 2020, of ‘discriminating’ against Muslims. These comments provoked a widespread reaction. At the opening of the appeal trial for the murder of Samuel Paty on Monday, January 26, the lawyer for Islamist preacher Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who was on trial along with three other people, suggested that the history and geography teacher, who was beheaded by a Chechen Islamist in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in 2020, ‘discriminated against Muslims’.
‘The beheading of Samuel Paty is so horrific that it overshadows the entire case. There is a taboo because we are not allowed to say that he discriminated against Muslim students,’ said Francis Vuillemin. ‘But I will say it loud and clear throughout the trial and not just when I make my closing statement,’ he added to the press, before clarifying: ‘He (Paty, editor’s note) said it was to protect the students from this cartoon, but we do not protect anyone in the school of the Republic by discriminating, by asking students to identify themselves on the basis of their religion.’ ‘This will form the basis of the defence,’ concluded Francis Vuillemin.
A speech that clearly does not please Samuel Paty’s sister. ‘I know that this is his defence for this appeal trial, it was much less the case in the first trial,’ said Gaëlle Paty on BFM TV. ‘He is being accused of being responsible for his own death, which is absolutely outrageous,’ laments the co-author of the book Samuel Paty, A Trial for the Future, before adding: ‘It is so far away from who he was. On the contrary, my brother was someone who was extremely tolerant and curious about religions.’ As for Virginie Le Roy, the lawyer representing the parents of the murdered teacher and his sister, she described her colleague’s remarks as ‘purely and simply scandalous and indecent’.
In the first instance trial, the eight defendants (seven men and one woman) were all found guilty and sentenced to between one and ten years in prison. Four of them will be retried before the Special Court of Appeal in Paris until February 27. On the first day of the hearing, all of them denied the charges against them.