A French juvenile court convicted six teenagers for their roles in the 2020 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamic extremist, Associated Press reports.
Paty was killed near his school after showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class debate on free expression. The attacker, a young Chechen who had become radicalized, was killed by police.
The court found five defendants, aged 14 and 15 at the time, guilty of identifying and staking out the teacher for the attacker. The sixth, aged 13, was convicted of making false allegations that aggravated online anger against the teacher.
The defendants, all students at Paty’s school, received lenient sentences. One was given a six-month prison term but allowed to serve under house arrest. The others were given special suspended sentences between two to three years that required them to stay in school or jobs.
