Samuel Paty: Six French teenagers convicted over Islamic extremist’s killing of teacher

A French juvenile court has convicted six teenagers for their roles in the beheading of a teacher by an Islamic extremist, and all were handed brief or suspended prison terms.

Teacher Samuel Paty was killed outside his school on 16 October 2020 after showing his class cartoons of the prophet of Islam during a debate on free expression.

The attacker, a young Chechen named Abdoullakh Anzorov who had been radicalised, was killed by police after being shot at the scene.

The court found five of the defendants, 14 and 15 at the time of the attack, guilty of staking out the teacher and identifying him for the attacker.

Another defendant, 13 at the time, was accused of lying about the classroom debate in a comment that aggravated online anger against the teacher.

The teenagers testified that they did not know the teacher would be killed, however, they are alleged to have helped Anzorov identify Mr Paty at the school in exchange for a €300 (£260) payment. One said Anzorov told him that he wanted to film Mr Paty apologising for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Prosecutors have also accused two friends of Anzorov of "complicity in a terrorist murder", the most serious crime of the case - with one man accused of buying Anzorov weapons, the other of driving him to the school where Mr Paty taught on the day of the murder.