Two witnesses on Wednesday gave very different portraits of the Islamist preacher who is being tried before the Special Court of Justice in Paris for his role in the murder of teacher Samuel Paty.
On October 16, 2020, Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was stabbed and then beheaded near a college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris, where he taught.
The killer, Abdoullakh Anzorov, a young Chechen Russian who was seeking asylum in France, was killed by police shortly afterwards.
Two of his friends are being charged with complicity in the murder, a crime punishable by life imprisonment.
The other six, including Sefrioui, 65, who will be heard on December 3, are being tried for participation in a criminal terrorist organization and could face up to 30 years in prison.
"Sefrioui is a man of faith (...) but not radical," said his partner, Ikram H., 34, who gave evidence wearing a white veil.
"Sefrioui calls himself an imam. For me, he is a fanatical Islamist," said Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy (a suburb of Paris).
Ikram H. and Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 31 years his senior, met in 2009 during meetings of the Cheikh-Yassine collective, created by Sefrioui in 2004 and known for its support of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and its demonstrations calling for the destruction of Israel.
But despite all this, his partner assured, "the Cheikh-Yassine collective was first and foremost a group of friends."
"Choosing the name Sheikh Yassine, the founder of the terrorist movement Hamas, to name his movement is significant, he is the guru of Islam", assured the imam of Drancy.
Living under police protection, forced to move house every three days, his family forced into exile and to change their identity, Hassen Chalghoumi, 52, recounted his first meeting with Sefrioui in 2010, in front of his mosque in Drancy.
The imam spoke in favour of banning the full veil in public spaces. This position earned him the wrath of the most radical Islamists and, in particular, of Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who organised several demonstrations around and at the Drancy mosque.
An anti-terrorism investigator showed videos of these meetings in court earlier this week. The imam of Drancy was described as a "criminal" by the demonstrators.
In October 2020, in the video of the accused against Samuel Paty, the teacher was also called a "criminal".
This qualification is equivalent to "a fatwa (religious decree)," the imam said.
The term "criminal" was not a happy one, admitted Ikram H., who believes that his companion's speech in this video "was not violent, but merely inflammatory".
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