A French court convicted six students of involvement in the assassination of teacher Samuel Paty in 2020, a case that shocked society.

The court issued sentences yesterday, Friday, December 8, 2023, ranging from 14 months to two years in prison, but all were suspended or reduced. None of the convicted will serve time behind bars, according to the decision issued by the juvenile court after deliberations that remained behind closed doors.

The history and geography teacher, who was 47 years old, was stabbed and then beheaded in October 2020 near the school where he taught in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in the Paris region by Abdallah Anzorov, a Russian refugee of Chechen origin who was later shot dead by the police.

Lawyers representing the Paty family and close ones criticized the reduced sentences, considering that they send a "bad signal" and do not match the severity of the crime.

Lawyer Virginie Louroi also said, "Beheading a man in the street is not a trivial matter," affirming that the family is filled with "anger," "disappointment," and "incomprehension" over the sentences.

The extremist Islamist who was 18 years old took issue with the teacher for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of expression, congratulating himself in a voice message in Russian because he "avenged the Prophet."

Trial behind closed doors...

The trial was held behind closed doors because the ages of the accused range between 16 and 18 years old. Five of the teenagers who were between 14 and 15 years old at the time were tried for conspiracy to commit aggravated violence. They are accused of monitoring the areas around the school and identifying Paty to the attacker in exchange for a reward.

Four of them were sentenced to suspended prison terms ranging from 14 to 18 months. The fifth was sentenced to two years in prison with 18 months suspended and will be required to wear an electronic bracelet during the remaining six months of the total sentence.

A sixth teenage girl who was 13 years old at the time of the events was tried for slander after claiming that Samuel Paty asked Muslim students in the class to leave the room before showing the drawings. But it was revealed that what she stated was incorrect as she was not present in that class. She was sentenced to 18 months suspended imprisonment.