It is a reality as cruel as it is revolting: Samuel Paty died beheaded because of the initial and derisory lie of a 13-year-old college girl.
According to our information, Z. Chnina, the teenager at the origin of the controversy which led to the assassination of this history teacher from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) admitted during his police custody and then in front of the anti-terrorist judge that she had not attended the late teacher's famous course on freedom of expression.
"[...] I was not there the day of the cartoons", admitted the schoolgirl during her indictment for "slanderous denunciation" on November 25th.
This lie with tragic consequences is part of a family context: complexed by the academic success of her twin sister, Z. Chnina would not have dared to admit to her father the real reasons for her exclusion shortly before the tragedy, in fact linked to his bad behavior.
Schooled in 4th at the college of the wood of Aulne, the schoolgirl had accused Samuel Paty of having stigmatized the Muslim students during a course entitled "Situation of dilemma: to be or not to be Charlie" and given on October 6.
That is 10 days before his barbaric murder.
According to Z.'s false version, the 47-year-old teacher asked them to raise their hands and then leave the classroom so that he could show a cartoon of the naked Prophet Muhammad published by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Z. had claimed to have expressed his disapproval of this so-called denominational census to the professor, which would have earned him a two-day exclusion.
Present the day before during a class where no drawing had been projected
"He said that I was disrupting the course and told me not
to broom,
" she told the Conflans police officers when she filed a complaint against the teacher for "dissemination of pornographic images" on October 8.
Against the backdrop of accusations of Islamophobia within the college, an artificial controversy had then erupted, widely relayed and amplified on social networks by Brahim Chnina, 48, the father of the student, and Abdelhakim Sefroui, an Islamist activist on file S. Until returning to the ears of young Abdullakh Anzorov.
Radicalized for several months, the future 18-year-old terrorist, of Chechen origin and living in Evreux (Eure), was looking for a pretext to wage jihad.
But after the assassination, investigators from the anti-terrorism sub-directorate (SDAT) had made a disturbing discovery: when questioned, several of Z. Chnina's comrades claim that she was not present during this course, but only the day before. of an introductory session during which no drawing was projected.
In addition, Samuel Paty would not have forced any Muslim student to evacuate the room that day but proposed, on the contrary with thoughtfulness, to those who might be shocked to close their eyes.
PODCAST. Assassination of Samuel Paty: what the college students approached by the terrorist told investigators
Placed in police custody at the SDAT on November 23, the young girl first maintains her accusations against the teacher.
Confronted with the testimonies of her comrades about her absence, she persists: it is they who lie.
It was only during her penultimate hearing that the teenager retracted, led by investigators to the underlying reasons for her lie.
"I lied about something"
The police ask her if she has not "invented this caricature story to feel herself existing" in the eyes of her father, reminding her that she is often "compared" to her twin, "much more diligent".
"Don't you dare to change your statements so as not to disappoint your family?
», They insist.
And the teenager confesses: “I lied about something.
Z. explains that she has never seen the cartoons projected by Samuel Paty, neither on October 5 nor on October 6.
It was actually a girl in her class who told her about it on Wednesday 7, the day after the free speech class she did not attend due to her exclusion.
Exclusion motivated by his chronic absenteeism ...
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The young girl would have deliberately lied to her father to avoid disappointing him.
"If I had not said that to my father, regrets Z. before the anti-terrorism judge, there would not have been all this and it would not have taken this magnitude.
The teenager, who says to have "started to cry" on learning of the death of her teacher, reveals to have so far kept the secret about her lie, including from her father whom she describes "a bit like in a bubble ".
In her defense, Z. nevertheless claims to have been influenced by a handful of classmates to make the CPE believe that she had seen the cartoons.
"Suddenly, I was the spokesperson for the whole class [...]", she defends herself.
Brahim Chnina, the father of the schoolgirl, "sincerely regrets the extent of the damage", after the broadcast of his video on social networks./DR
Contacted, the lawyer for the family of Samuel Paty says she is "cautious" about the girl's explanations.
“His lie was untenable.
From the moment she recognizes that she lied, you have to find reasons.
Are these explanations of circumstance? Asks Me Virginie Le Roy.
As it stands, these explanations seem too light to me, all the more in view of the dramatic consequences that this lie has caused.
We still do not understand what motivated this relentlessness against Samuel Paty, the persistence and the repetition of this lie.
"
A fusional attachment to his father
After a period of correspondence courses, Z. has now resumed his education far from the college in the Bois d'Aulne.
During a personality survey, educators and psychologists noted her feeling of inferiority compared to her sister as well as her fusional attachment to her father, who "is everything to her".
"Z. said [...] to feel in difficulties academically unlike his twin sister who would have very good results, they note.
She sees in her a model to identify with.
"
Solicited, Z. Chnina's lawyer refuses "to place the blame for this tragedy on the lie of a 13-year-old girl.
".
"It is the excessive behavior of the father who records and posts a video incriminating the professor which leads to this gear, insists Me Mbeko Tabula.
My client lied but even if it had been true her father's reaction would have been just as disproportionate.
"
VIDEO. Conflans-Sainte-Honorine: hundreds of people pay tribute to Samuel Paty
To the pathetic confession is added another: that of the father of Z. Indicted for "complicity in terrorist assassination" for having designated Samuel Paty to retaliate on social networks, Brahim Chnina is also considerably back on his version.
Heard again by the examining magistrate on January 26, he explains, contrite, that his anger at the time was in fact not linked to Samuel Paty's course.
"I was not trying to do any harm by making this message"
“After exactly 100 days, since this tragedy, I was stupid, stupid, he rewinds in front of the magistrate.
I owe the truth to that family, to M Paty, to all of France [...] When I heard my daughter's message, it was the two days of my daughter's exclusion that made me wrong.
[...] The caricatures, I do not care.
The man says he simply wanted to “behave like a good father”.
“I was not there in relation to discrimination or caricature.
It was not my subject.
I sincerely regret the extent of the damage, ”he says, explaining that he did not know at the time the reasons for his daughter's exclusion and regretting not having“ checked her story ”.
Brahim Chnina's remarks contrast with the virulence of his speeches during his campaign to denigrate Samuel Paty on social networks, which he then described as "sick to be fired".
During his custody in October, he even compared the teacher to "Hitler" ... "I did not think that my messages were going to be read by terrorists, pleads today the father.
I was not trying to do any harm by making this message.
I find it hard to imagine that we have come to this, that we have lost a history teacher, that all of society is angry with me [...] ”.
Since his indictment, Brahim Chnina has been imprisoned in Fresnes (Val-de-Marne).
“My client took a step back, he had time to analyze what had happened, notes his lawyer Me Nabil El Ouchikli, refusing to talk about backpedaling.
He has nightmares of it every night.
He understood that he had been instrumentalized by his daughter who lied to him, even if it was difficult to accept ”.