A 14-year-old Afghan schoolboy, who had been accused in Marseille of “apologizing for terrorism” for remarks he allegedly made during a tribute to the beheaded professor Samuel Paty, was released by the court, no evidence was found. having demonstrated its radicalization.
The Marseille prosecutor’s office confirmed this information from the investigation site on ThursdayMarsactu specifying that he did not intend “not to appeal this release” when he had requested two months in prison suspended at the hearing.
Arriving in France for two years
The facts dated back to November 2020 during an impromptu discussion in physical education and sports (PSE) class. The young boy who spent twelve years in Afghanistan would have repeated that Samuel Paty had “not to do that”, in reference to the professor beheaded on October 16, 2020 because he had shown caricatures of Muhammad to his students.
He would have answered “yes” to comrades who asked him if he condoned the terrorist act and said it would “filmed and posted on Instagram,” the image of his own history and geography teacher if she had held the same thing.
“He’s been living in France for two years, he doesn’t speak French well and he is being dragged to court because a horde of kids has fallen on him, saying:” So, you guarantee! ” He answered “yes” or “no” to a series of questions asked at the same time. Nothing in all of this is an apology for terrorism, ”explains his lawyer, Anne-Sophie Grardel, according to whom her client who“ does not watch TV ”did not know what had happened to Samuel Paty.
Not “in a process of radicalization”
In his report, the principal of the college, absent at the time of the facts, had indicated to the police officers that the teenager would have said “me too, I would have killed him”, remarks which were never corroborated thereafter.
The teenager had been indicted for “apologizing for terrorism” but the investigation failed to substantiate his radicalization, on the contrary. His father, a policeman in Afghanistan who now runs a snack bar, fled the Taliban and obtained political asylum in France. An educator testified that the teenager was “brought up in values opposed to those advocated by radical Islamism” and a psychologist that he was not “in a process of radicalization”.