The family lawyer for the beheaded French professor Samuel Paty is “furious” with the revelation that a 13-year-old girl has spread lies that led to the murder – and dissatisfied with the explanations given so far.
Virginie Le Roy, who represents the Paty family, said she does not believe the teenager’s excuse that peer pressure was part of the reason she lied about Muslim students being asked to leave the teacher’s class during a class at school. west of Paris.
“This explanation does not satisfy me, it makes me a little irritated because the facts are serious, dramatic,” she told RTL radio, the Agence France-Press reported.
The girl, who was not identified, said Paty, 47, dismissed Muslim students so he could show the class a controversial drawing of the prophet Muhammad.
But then she confessed that she was not present for class and spread the false story to please her father, who then filed a complaint against Paty.
“Everything in the investigation showed very early on that she lied,” said Le Roy.
She said she was “skeptical” about the version of events now told by the girl – particularly she claims that other colleagues asked her to “be her spokesperson”.
“A spokesman for what? From lies, from events that never happened? ”Le Roy said told the radio station.
The girl’s father set up a social media campaign at the time against Paty for showing the blasphemous image, which is considered by Muslims to be highly offensive.
As the reaction against the professor grew, he was murdered by an 18-year-old extremist, Abdullakh Anzorov.
The girl’s lawyer said on Monday that she lied “because she felt trapped in a chain of events”
“There was real concern, she felt compelled to contribute to making this message stand out,” said lawyer Mbeko Tabula, according to Euro News.
Tabula confirmed that she was not there on the day of the incident in the classroom – attributing her absence to the fact that she was ill.
But the girl had apparently been suspended the day before and did not want her father to know about the punishment, reported the French newspaper Le Parisien.
The girl was accused of slander, while her father was arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice to a terrorist murder, the Independent reported.
