A 13-year-old student confessed to spreading a false story about French history teacher Samuel Paty – which triggered a horrific chain of events that led to his beheading last year, reports say on Tuesday.
The girl, whose name was not disclosed, admitted that she “lied” about a class incident at a school in western Paris to please her father, Independent reported.
She initially claimed that Paty, 47, asked Muslim students to leave the classroom before showing them cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a free speech class, media reported.
The girl allegedly told her father that she was then suspended for two days after he challenged the teacher to send Muslim students to the hall while he showed the blasphemous image.
Her fibers prompted her father to file a legal complaint against the teacher, who then launched a social campaign, the BBC reported.
The revolution has grown against Paty because Muhammad’s descriptions are forbidden in Islam – and considered by Muslims to be very offensive.
Ten days later, the teacher was beheaded by an 18-year-old man, Abdullakh Anzorov, who was later shot by police.
But now it was discovered that the girl was not even in class on the day of the alleged incident at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.
The girl apparently was suspended the day before because she did not attend the class and did not want her father to know about the punishment, the French newspaper Le Parisien reported.
Her lawyer confirmed on Monday that the girl was not in class – but claimed it was because she was ill that day.
“She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates asked her to be her spokesperson,” her lawyer, Mbeko Tabula, told Agence France-Presse.
Her lawyer, however, argued that the father should be the one accused of the consequences due to his “excessive and disproportionate behavior,” Independent reported.
The girl was accused of slander, while her father was arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice in a terrorist crime, the press reported.