FOUR teenage pupils have been charged over the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty – including three who allegedly pointed him out to the terrorist who would kill him.
Paty was butchered in a suburb on the outskirts of Paris by teenage killer Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov after he used pictures of the Islamic profit Muhammad during a lesson on free speech.
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It comes after three other pupils were charged with complicity earlier this month over the beheading last month.
Paty’s murder has sparked outrage in France as it sparked new debates on free speech and how to tackle Islamic terrorism.
Three of the four students charged on Thursday were suspected of identifying Paty to his 18-year-old killer.
He paid the students a few hundred Euros for their help before he then stalked the 47-year-old dad-of-one.
Anzorov then tracked him down and beheaded him in a street near his school before being shot dead by the cops.
The three, who are between 13 and 14 years old, are being charged with “complicity in a terrorist murder,” a source told AFP.
The fourth teen is the daughter of Brahim Chnina, who launched a virulent online campaign against Paty.
He denounced the teacher’s use of the cartoons published by satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
Chnina himself – as well as Islamist militant Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who ran the campaign together with him – have already faced charges.
His daughter is accused of “slanderous denunciation” of Paty after relating her version of events in the classroom.
She told her dad what happened even though she did not actually attend his civics lesson.
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Dad and daughter reported Paty to police for “discrimination” just over a week before the murder.
They alleging that he had singled out Muslim students by asking them to leave the room before showing the cartoons.
Other witnesses have reported that Paty only said students were free to leave the room if they did not want to see the controversial cartoons.
All four teenagers were briefly detained earlier this week at the request of anti-terror investigators and freed under judicial supervision.
FRANCE UNDER SIEGE
The charges take the total number of people investigated over the murder to 14.
Among those charged includes two teens – aged 14 and 15 – who also allegedly helped the terrorist identify the teacher.
Prosecutors said Anzorov told the children that he wanted to “humiliate and strike” Paty over the cartoons.
He is also reported to have sent them a video just moments before the shooting, showing himself holding a gun and a knife.
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Paty’s murder sparked a torrent of outrage that prompted President Emmanuel Macron to crack down on Islamist extremism and violence.
France is still reeling from a wave of jihadist attacks since 2015 that have killed more than 250 people.
Marcon’s actions have triggered anger in the Muslim world as he vehemently defended the right to show the cartoons.
The row has triggered heightened security fears as France has seen a number of new attacks, such as the killing of three people at a church in Nice.
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Prophet Mohammed cartoons have been displayed in France in solidarity with Paty to defend what many in the country see as its values of free speech and secularism.
Macron has said he would redouble efforts to stop conservative Islamic beliefs subverting French values, but some of said the measures are discriminatory to Muslims.
Paty is being seen as a champion of free speech by many in France after his brutal death – inspiring the defiant phrase “Je Suis Prof”.
The image he showed to students was the same one published by Charlie Hebdo that sparked the attack on the magazine’s offices that killed 12.
