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Video: Samuel Paty murder — Student admits to lying over claims of Islamophobia against beheaded teacher

WION Web Team
PARISUpdated: Mar 09, 2021, 10:17 PM IST
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In France, the student who complained against school teacher Samuel Paty has admitted that she was lying and spreading false claims. The girl had claimed that Samuel Paty has asked Muslim Students to leave the class when he showed the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad.

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The girl's father later lodged a legal complaint and amplified the allegations online, leading an 18-year-old Chechen refugee to track down Paty in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris.

A French schoolgirl has admitted lying about a teacher who was beheaded after her false complaints led to an online hate campaign against him. 

The unidentified girl had claimed Samuel Paty asked Muslim pupils to leave the class before showing an image depicting the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on free speech.

Also read: Beheaded Samuel Paty will get France's highest honour

The girl's father later lodged a legal complaint and amplified the allegations online, leading an 18-year-old Chechen refugee to track down Paty in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris.

"She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson," her lawyer Mbeko Tabula told AFP on Monday, confirming a report from the Parisien newspaper.

Paty showed the cartoons, which were first published in the Charlie Hebdo magazine and are deemed offensive by many Muslims, during a civics class in which students debated free speech and blasphemy.

The schoolgirl, who had already been threatened with expulsion because of disciplinary problems, was not in the class. 

She has since been charged with slander, while her father and another man, an Islamist preacher and campaigner, and have been charged with "complicity in murder" over the killing.

Paty's murderer was shot dead by police shortly after the attack.

The Parisien newspaper reported Monday that his last contact was with someone in Syria who is a member of a jihadist group.

A draft new security law being discussed in the French parliament would make it a jailable offence to publish information online about a public servant knowing that doing so could cause them harm.

(With inputs from agencies)