An Algerian man was sentenced on Wednesday to six months in prison for having “glorified” the assassination of French teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded on 16 October, the French authorities reported Friday.
This 34-year-old man was placed in police custody on Tuesday for posting on October 19 a message “glorifying the act of Samuel Paty's murderer, making him a martyr”, in a “message erased the next day”, said the research section of the Gendarmerie of Versailles, in the suburbs of Paris.
He was sentenced on Wednesday by the Pontoise court to six months in prison and ten years banning French territory, according to the same source.
According to a source close to the investigation, the man had no criminal record, lived in the Paris region and had been in an irregular situation since 2016.
“The young man who was killed in France, the one who defended our Prophet, the young Chechen man is a martyr if God wishes, may God be merciful with him and settle him in Paradise,” he wrote on social networks, according to the source close to the investigation.
Samuel Paty was beheaded by Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Russian refugee of Chechen origin, after leaving his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), after he had shown cartoons of Prophet Muhammed in two courses on freedom of expression.
Anzorov was shot dead by the police right after the murder. He claimed responsibility for the attack on social media.
