PARIS (AP) — The trial of eight people in Paris on terrorism charges started on Monday over the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who was killed by an Islamic extremist after showing caricatures of Islam's prophet to his middle school students for a lesson on freedom of expression.
Paty's shocking death left an imprint on France, and several schools are now named after him. Paty was killed outside his school near Paris on Oct. 16, 2020, by an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, who was shot to death by police.
Those on trial include friends of assailant Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped purchase weapons for the attack, as well as people who are accused of spreading false information online about the teacher and his class.
The proceedings started Monday in the presence of members of Paty’s family, including his two sisters.
The trial was held under high security, with many police officers patrolling and making checks outside and inside the courtroom.
Five of the accused, who are currently imprisoned, were seated in a wide glass box. Three others, placed under judicial supervision, sat on the defendants' benches outside the box.
The attack occurred against a backdrop of 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.
“We expect that the justice system will be up to the crime that has been committed," Francis Szpiner, the lawyer representing Paty's 9-year-old son, told reporters. “It’s an unheard-of event in the history of the republic. It’s the first time a teacher has been assassinated because he is a teacher."
Thibault de Montbrial, a lawyer for Paty’s sister, Mickaëlle Paty, said the trial "will enable everybody in French society to become aware of the direct link, extremely clear, that exists between fundamentalist Islam ... and the violence that can lead to such a terrifying act."
Much attention at the trial will focus on Brahim Chnina, the Muslim father of a teenager who was 13 at the time and claimed that she had been excluded from Paty’s class when he showed the caricatures on Oct. 5, 2020.
Chnina, 52, sent a series of messages to his contacts denouncing Paty, saying that “this sick man” needed to be fired, along with the address of the school in the Paris suburb of Conflans Saint-Honorine.
In reality, Chnina’s daughter had lied to him and had never attended the lesson in question.
Paty was giving a lesson mandated by the National Education Ministry on freedom of expression. He discussed the caricatures in this context, saying students who did not wish to see them could temporarily leave the classroom.
An online campaign against Paty snowballed, and 11 days after the lesson, Anzorov attacked the teacher with a knife as he walked home, and displayed the teacher’s head on social media. Police later shot Anzorov as he advanced towards them armed.
Chnina will be tried for alleged association with a terrorist enterprise for targeting the 47-year-old teacher through false information.
His daughter was tried last year in a juvenile court and given an 18-month suspended sentence. Four other students at Paty's school were found guilty of involvement and given suspended sentences; a fifth, who pointed out Paty to Anzorov in exchange for money, was given a 6-month term with an electronic bracelet.
Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 65, is another key figure in the trial opening Monday for the adult suspects. He presented himself as a spokesperson for Imams of France, although he had been dismissed from that role. He filmed a video in front of the school with the father of the student. He referred to the teacher as a “thug” multiple times and sought to pressure the school administration via social media.
Sefrioui founded the pro-Hamas Cheikh Yassine Collective in 2004, which was dissolved a few days after Paty's killing. Sefrioui had long criticized and threatened Muslims who advocate friendship with Jews, including the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris.
Sefrioui and Chnina face 30 years in prison if convicted.
Chnina denied any incitement to “kill” in his messages and video, claiming he did not intend to incite hatred and violence, according to judicial documents.
Sefrioui’s lawyer, Ouadie Elhamamouchi, said he will seek to prove his client is “innocent" and that the video filmed by Sefrioui in front of the school was not seen by the attacker. "In this case, he is the only one who never had any link with the terrorist,” Elhamamouchi said.
Anzorov, who had wanted to go to Syria to fight with Islamic extremists there, discovered Paty’s name on jihadist social media channels, according to investigators. Anzorov lived 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Paty's school and did not know the teacher.
Two of Anzorov’s friends face life imprisonment if convicted on charges of complicity in murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise. Naim Boudaoud, 22, and Azim Epsirkhanov, 23, are accused of helping Anzorov buy a knife and a pellet gun. Boudaoud also drove Anzorov to Paty’s school. They turned themselves in at the police station, and deny being aware of the attacker’s intentions.
The other four individuals are charged with criminal terrorist conspiracy for communicating with the killer on pro-jihad Snapchat groups. They all deny being aware of the intent to kill Samuel Paty.
On Oct. 13, 2023, another teacher in France was killed by a radical Islamist from Russia, originally from Ingushetia, a region bordering Chechnya.
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AP Journalists Marine Lesprit, Nicolas Garriga and Alexander Turnbull contributed to the story.
FILE - Hundreds of people gather on Republique square during a demonstration Sunday Oct. 18, 2020 in Paris, in support of freedom of speech and to pay tribute to French history teacher Samuel Paty. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
FILE - A Republican Guard holds a portrait of Samuel Paty in the courtyard of the Sorbonne university during a national memorial event, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool, File)
FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron leaves after paying his respects by the coffin of slain teacher Samuel Paty in the courtyard of the Sorbonne university during a national memorial event, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool, File)
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is installing 21 new cardinals, many of whom are key figures in his reform agenda: A Dominican preacher who acted as the spiritual father for Francis' recent gathering of bishops, a Neapolitan “street priest” like himself, and a Peruvian bishop who has strongly backed his crackdown on abuse.
Francis’ 10th consistory to create new princes of the church is also the biggest infusion of voting-age cardinals in his 11-year pontificate, further cementing his imprint on the group of men who will one day elect his successor. With Saturday's additions, Francis will have created 110 of the 140 cardinals under 80, thus eligible to vote in a conclave.
This consistory also brings the number of voting-age cardinals well over the 120-man limit set by St. John Paul II. But 13 existing cardinals will turn 80 next year, bringing the numbers back down.
This consistory is notable too because the 21 men being elevated aren’t the same ones Francis named Oct. 6 when he announced an unusual December consistory.
One of Francis’ original picks, Indonesian Bishop Paskalis Bruno Syukur, the bishop of Bogor, asked not to be made a cardinal “because of his desire to grow more in his life as a priest,” the Vatican said. Francis quickly substituted him with the Naples archbishop, Domenico Battaglia, known for his pastoral work in the slums and rough parts of Naples.
Battaglia is one of five Italians getting the red hat, keeping the once-dominant Italian presence in the College of Cardinals strong. Turin is getting a cardinal in its archbishop, Roberto Repole, as is Rome: Baldassare Reina, who on the same day Francis announced he was becoming a cardinal also learned that Francis had promoted him to be his top administrator for the diocese of Rome.
Francis, who is technically bishop of Rome, has been conducting a years-long reorganization of the Rome diocese and its pontifical universities. Reina – who is also grand chancellor of the pre-eminent Pontifical Lateran University – will be expected to execute the reform.
Another Italian is the oldest cardinal: Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old retired Vatican diplomat. He is the only one among the 21 new cardinals to be older than 80 and thus ineligible to vote in a conclave. Francis' picks on Saturday also include the youngest cardinal: the 44-year-old head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, Mykola Bychok.
Yet another Italian is one of two Vatican priests who do jobs in the Holy See that don’t usually carry the red hat: Fabio Baggio is undersecretary in the Vatican development office. Francis also decided to make a cardinal out of George Jacob Koovakad, the priest who organizes the pope’s foreign travels.
Other picks have high-profile roles in Francis’ reforms.
The archbishop of Lima, Peru, Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio, made headlines recently because of an extraordinary essay he penned for El Pais newspaper in which he called for the suppression of an influential Peruvian Catholic movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, which also has a presence in the U.S.
Castillo called the group a “failed experiment” of the church in Latin America, one of several conservative, right-wing movements that cropped up in the 1970s and 1980s as a counterweight to the more left-leaning liberation theology.
“My hypothesis is that the Sodalitium obeys a political project,” Castillo wrote. “It is the resurrection of fascism in Latin America, artfully using the church by means of sectarian methods.”
Francis has recently expelled the Sodalitium's founder and several top members following a Vatican investigation.
Castillo is one of five new Latin American cardinals named by history’s first Latin American pope. They include the archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, Vicente Bokalic Iglic; the archbishop of Porto Alegre, Brazil, Jaime Spengler; the archbishop of Santiago, Chile, Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib and the archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador, Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera.
Francis has long sought to broaden the geographic diversity of the College of Cardinals to show the universality of the church, particularly where it is growing. Asia got two new cardinals: Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, the archbishop of Tokyo; and Pablo Virgilio Sinogco David, the bishop of Kalookan, Philippines. Africa also got two new cardinals: the archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Ignace Bessi Dogbo, and the bishop of Algiers, Algeria, Jean-Paul Vesco.
“There hasn’t been an African pope, but it’s a possibility in the church," Dogbo said in an interview on the eve of his installation. "And I think that this eventuality — which is not necessarily a demand — if this eventuality were to arise, the universal church would have to be ready to take it on.”
Francis also tapped the archbishop of Tehran, Iran, Dominique Joseph Mathieu, the bishop of Belgrade, Serbia, Ladislav Nemet, while the lone North American cardinal named is the archbishop of Toronto, Frank Leo.
The Lithuanian-born cardinal-elect, Rolandas Makrickas, has a special job in this pontificate: As the archpriest of the St. Mary Major basilica, he hosts Francis every time the pope returns from a foreign trip, since the pope likes to pray before an icon of the Madonna in the church. Additionally, Makrickas oversaw a recent financial reform of the basilica and would have been involved in identifying the future final resting place for Francis, since the Argentine pope has said he will be buried there.
Perhaps the most familiar new cardinal to anyone who has been following Francis’ reform agenda is the Dominican Timothy Radcliff, the spiritual father of the just-concluded synod, or gathering of bishops. The years-long process aimed to make the church more inclusive and responsive to the needs of rank-and-file Catholics, especially women.
A British theologian, the white-robed Radcliffe often provided clarifying, if not humorous interventions during the weeks-long debate and retreats. At one point he set off a mini-firestorm by suggesting that external financial pressures influenced African bishops to reject Francis' permission to allow blessings for gay couples. He later said he just meant that the African Catholic Church is under pressure from other well-financed faiths.
As the synod was winding down, he offered some valuable perspective.
“Often we can have no idea as to how God’s providence is at work in our lives. We do what we believe to be right and the rest is in the hands of the Lord,” he told the gathering. “This is just one synod. There will be others. We do not have to do everything, just try to take the next step.”
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Newly appointed cardinal Vicente Bokalic Iglic, archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Mykola Bychok, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Mykola Bychok, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Ignace Bessi Dogbo archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod poses for photos as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Vicente Bokalic Iglic, archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Rolandas Makrickas Lithuanian-born archpriest of the St. Mary Major basilica poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Mykola Bychok, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Ignace Bessi Dogbo archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
