Samuel Paty had shown pupils caricatures of the prophet Muhammad during a class on freedom of expression

A French court has convicted six teenagers in connection with the 2020 beheading of history teacher Samuel Paty, whose murder shocked the country.

Paty was killed outside his school in 2020 after showing his class cartoons of the prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The attacker, a young Chechen who had been radicalised, was killed by police.

The court on Friday found five of the defendants, who were 14 and 15 at the time of the attack, guilty of staking out the teacher and identifying him to the attacker. Another defendant, 13 at the time, was found guilty of lying about the classroom debate in a comment that aggravated online anger against the teacher.