A 13-year-old student has fabricated a false story about French history teacher Samuel Paty – who sparked a gruesome chain of events that led to his being beheaded last year, reported Tuesday.
The girl, whose name has not been disclosed, admitted she “lied” about an incident in class at the school west of Paris to please her father, the Independent reported.
She originally claimed that Paty, 47, had asked Muslim students to leave the classroom before showing them cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of speech, the outlet reported.
The girl reportedly told her father that she was subsequently suspended for two days after challenging the teacher to send Muslim students into the hall while showing the blasphemous statue.
Her party caused her father to file a legal complaint against the teacher, who then started a social media campaign, the BBC reported.
Opposition has grown against Paty since depictions of Muhammad have been banned in Islam – and are considered highly offensive by Muslims.
Ten days later, the teacher was beheaded by an 18-year-old man, Abdullakh Anzorov, who was later shot by police.
But it has now turned out that the girl was not even in class on the day of the alleged incident at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.
The girl had apparently been suspended the day before for not attending class and did not want her father to know about the punishment, French newspaper Le Parisien reported.
Her lawyer confirmed on Monday that the girl was not in class, but claimed it was because she was sick that day.
“She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates asked her to become a spokesperson,” her lawyer, Mbeko Tabula, told Agence France-Presse.
However, her attorney argued that the father should be the one responsible for the consequences because of his “excessive and disproportionate behavior,” the Independent reported.
The girl has been charged with defamation while her father was arrested on suspicion of complicity in a terrorist murder, the outlet reported.