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French schoolgirl admits lying about decapitated teacher

A 13-year-old schoolgirl whose Muslim father led a hate campaign against secondary school teacher Samuel Paty for showing a class on free speech cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and who was attacked and decapitated in the street, has admitted lying to her father about the details of the class in which she was in fact not present. 

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A French schoolgirl has admitted to lying and spreading false claims about a teacher who was murdered last year, reports BBC News.

Samuel Paty was beheaded in October after showing students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The girl, whose complaints sparked an online campaign against Paty, has now admitted that she was not in the class.

Mr Paty's killing stunned France and led to an outpouring of support at memorial ceremonies and marches around the country.

The 13-year-old girl, who has not been named, originally told her father that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave the classroom while he showed the cartoon during a class on free speech and blasphemy.

"She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson," her lawyer, Mbeko Tabula, told the AFP news agency.

The girl's father filed a legal complaint against the teacher and began an online hate campaign over the incident.

Prosecutors said shortly after the killing that there was a "direct causal link" between the online incitement against Paty and his murder.

Read more of this report from BBC News.