French court reduces prison terms for 3 people involved in 2020 teacher beheading

A French court on Monday reduced on appeal the prison sentences of three men convicted over the 2020 jihadist beheading of a teacher who showed a class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.Samuel Paty, 47, was murdered in October 2020 by Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old radical Islamist of Chechen origin, in an act that horrified France.Anzorov was killed in a shoot-out with police.Two friends of Anzorov, French national Naim Boudaoud and Azim Epsirkhanov, a Russian of Chechen origin, had their sentences of 16 years in prison reduced to six and seven years respectively by a Paris court of appeal.Both were accused of helping Anzorov to procure weapons before the beheading.Brahim Chnina, the Moroccan father of a girl who falsely claimed that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave his classroom before showing the caricatures, had his 13-year sentence reduced to 10 years.