Girl who sparked online hate campaign ending in French teacher’s beheading 'never attended class’

A schoolgirl who triggered an online hate campaign that ended in the grisly beheading of a French teacher has admitted to lying and spreading false claims about him, her lawyer said on Monday. The unnamed girl had claimed the teacher, Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by an Islamic extremist in the street in October last year, had asked Muslims to leave the class when he showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a debate on free speech and blasphemy. The cartoons had previously been published in the Charlie Hebdo magazine. The girl's father later filed a legal complaint and posted his allegations online. That prompted a social media hate campaign that ended an 18-year-old Chechen refugee tracking down Mr Paty in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris. On Monday, a lawyer for the girl, who had a history of disciplinary problems, confirmed she in fact never attended the class and was away on sick leave at the time. "She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson," her lawyer Mbeko Tabula told AFP confirming a report from the Parisien newspaper. She has since been charged with slander, while her father and another man, an Islamist preacher and campaigner, have been charged with "complicity in murder" over the killing. Mr Paty's murderer, who was shot dead by police shortly after the attack was in contact with someone in Syria who is a member of a jihadist group just before the murder, according to Le Parisien. A draft security law under discussion in French parliament plans to punish circulating information online about a state employee, when this could knowingly cause them harm, with prison.

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