PARIS – The father of a French student whose account of the use of a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in a course on freedom of expression indirectly led to the teacher’s brutal assassination went on trial Monday on charges of association with a terrorist network.

Samuel Paty, 47, was stabbed repeatedly in 2020 outside his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, near Paris, by an 18-year-old attacker of Chechen origin, then beheaded, days after who showed his students the caricatures.

Many Muslims consider depictions of prophets to be blasphemous.

Prosecutors say Brahim Chnina used social media to turn a dispute over a civics class into a campaign against Paty, helping to make videos aimed at inciting hatred of the middle school teacher and posting them on social networks.

They accuse Chnina of collaborating with Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a Franco-Moroccan who founded a hardline Islamist organization, the Cheikh Yassine Collective, later banned in France.

Both men are accused of association with a terrorist organization. Chnina’s lawyer declined to comment before the trial began.

Sefrioui’s lawyer, Ouadie Elhamamouchi, said there was no evidence of contact between Sefrioui and the Chechen killer, whom police shot dead.

Elhamamouchi told Reuters that Sefrioui would show the court “that he has absolutely nothing to do with this atrocious attack, which he condemned from day one.”

Among the other six on trial in Paris alongside Chnina and Sefrioui are two associates of Paty’s killer, Abdullakh Anzorov. Prosecutors say they knew about Anzorov’s plans to kill Paty and helped him buy weapons.

Both are charged with complicity in a terrorist crime, and French media say both have denied wrongdoing.

Last year, a court found Chnina’s daughter and five other teenagers guilty of charges related to participating in a premeditated criminal conspiracy and helping to prepare an ambush.

Chnina’s daughter was not in Paty’s class when the cartoons were shown, and the court found her guilty of false accusations and slanderous comments.

The latest trial is set to run until December. Reuters