The family of Samuel Paty filed a complaint, Wednesday April 6, against the ministries of the Interior and National Education for “non-assistance to person in danger” and “non-prevention of crime”, learned franceinfo from his lawyer Virginie Leroy, confirming information from Release.
According to the complaint, which franceinfo was able to consult, the teacher’s family denounces a series of failures. The intelligence services are thus accused of never having seriously considered the risk of an attack and the rectorate of Versailles of not having taken protective measures.
“As soon as the agents of the Ministry of the Interior were aware of a level 4 threat, Samuel Paty should have benefited from police protection which would have represented an obstacle to the criminal project of Abdullakh Anzorov”writes the lawyer of the family in the complaint. “With such support, Samuel Paty would have been saved.” Maître Virginie Leroy also points out the “criminal liability of DGSI agents” who “should have detected violent radicalization” by Abdullah Anzorov.
The complaint alleges “gross negligence“on all floors, information from Yvelines, the secularism referent of the college, the DAASEN (deputy academic director of the national education services) of the Versailles academy and the technical security adviser of the rectorate of Versailles who is “remained totally inactive” and has “refused to deploy the mobile security team from the academy to the college, yet requested twice by the principal”.
“The object is to have answers on the fact that Samuel Paty could not be saved, could not benefit from police protection”explains family lawyer Virginie Leroy to France Inter. “All the alerts were gathered”according to her, at the time of the assassination of Professor Paty, on October 16, 2020. “It should be remembered that in October 2020, France is under the influence of three explicit terrorist threats targeting the cartoons and we are in the middle of the Charlie Hebdo trial.”
“When you have a threat against a teacher whose name is very quickly broadcast on social networks, and you accuse him of blasphemy for having shown caricatures to students, it is quite obvious that we are on a ground sensitive and that police protection is necessary.”
Me Virginie Leroy, lawyer for the Paty familyat France Inter
On October 16, 2020, history and geography professor Samuel Paty, 47, was stabbed and then beheaded near his college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), by Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Russian refugee of Chechen origin, killed shortly afterwards by the police. The 18-year-old man, radicalized, accused him of having shown caricatures of Muhammad in class. In an audio message in Russian, he claimed responsibility for his action, congratulating himself on having “avenge the prophet”.