A 42-year-old man in the French commune of Colmar is the latest to be sentenced by a court for praising or making apologies for the terrorist beheading of teacher Samuel Paty.
The unidentified man was handed a sentence of six months in prison on Monday for his comments, which he made to his probation officer on Thursday the 22nd of October and led to his arrest the next day.
According to a report from broadcaster Francebleu, the 42-year-old had told the probation officer that he “wanted to kill himself by committing an attack himself” and stated that he endorsed the murder of Mr Paty.
He then, according to the probation officer, went on the claim that 18-year-old Chechen refugee and Islamic radical Abdoullakh Anzorov, the man who beheaded Paty in the street, was actually a victim.
The incident comes just days after another man, an inmate at a jail in Amiens, was sentenced to eight months in prison for similar comments praising the terrorist attack to fellow inmates.
The 43-year-old had spoken positively of the Chechen terrorist, saying: “It’s good for him, he (the terrorist) did the job well, don’t touch my religion, my prophet.” While he later claimed to have acted “foolishly” and apologised in court, a judge convicted him.
Paty was murdered after he showed students the Mohammed cartoons published by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Since his murder, other teachers have received death threats, as well.
According to the prosecutor of the Republic of Vannes (Morbihan), François Touron, teachers in his department received death threat emails explicitly referencing the killing of Paty and asked for a ransom of 100 bitcoin (£987,033/$1,286,797) or teachers would suffer the same fate.
In a suburb of Lyon, a mayor was placed under police protection after threats to behead him were painted on walls in his area just days after Paty’s murder.
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