To the specially composed assize court,
She had barely taken a few steps into the large room of the specially composed assize court when she froze. In an instant, her stifled sobs flooded the room. “I can’t, I can’t,” she choked before turning around. In the dock, Peter Cherif remained impassive, not a glance at the woman who was, more than fifteen years ago, his first wife. Perhaps because he knew that the testimony she was about to give risked tarnishing the relatively smooth image he had been trying to project since the beginning of his trial, despite his wish to remain silent. A few minutes later, Fatma, now 32, reappeared. Dressed in a floral blouse, her long black hair held back by a braid, she approached the stand and delved into her past.
Summer 2009. Fatma is 16 and a half when her brother, the jihadist Boubaker El Hakim – who later became one of the leaders of the Islamic State – decides to marry her off to Peter Cherif. The two men grew up in the same neighborhood in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, and were radicalized within the same “Buttes-Chaumont network” in the early 2000s. In a few words, she describes the terror that her eldest son reigned over their family. It was he who decided to take her out of school when she was 11 and a half, forced her to wear the full veil at that time, made her watch Al-Qaeda propaganda videos… So much so that when he decided to marry her off, she initially thought she had found “the jackpot”, “a way to [se] release ” .
“I didn’t come out for six months”
On the contrary, she describes a descent into hell. “Repeated” rapes, beatings, “scenes of violence that you only see in films”… “I don’t even remember saying no […]”I was very, very afraid of Peter Cherif,” she insists, specifying that she had only met him once before their marriage. She is unaware that he was released from pretrial detention shortly before their marriage and is awaiting trial for having left to fight in the ranks of Al-Qaeda in 2004.
Fatma sometimes stops, swallows her sobs but quickly resumes the thread of her story. She says she tried to escape the first time but was quickly caught by one of her brothers who took her back to Peter Chérif. “When I crossed the threshold of his mother’s apartment, I went into his room and I didn’t come out for six months. When he wasn’t there, he gave me Kellogs with honey and a carton of milk,” she reports. According to her story, she managed to escape on December 31, 2009, when the accused’s mother forgot to lock the door.
“Humanitarian… like my brother”
His testimony is all the more important since Peter Cherif has remained silent since the beginning of the day. The presiding judge, Frédérique Aline, insists. Silence is a right, but since he denies the facts he is accused of, it is necessary to hear his version. Wasted effort. With a closed face and his arms crossed, Peter Cherif, dressed in an elegant gray suit and immaculate white shirt, politely reiterates his refusal to answer any questions. At the end of the morning, he speaks: “I would like to apologize if my attitude towards the civil parties causes frustration.” And to insist: “This is not a defense strategy but rather a pragmatic way of registering myself in this trial.” […] If there are intelligent questions that are intended to calm the debate, perhaps I will answer them.”
But the argument raises questions: the day was not devoted to the facts but to his life story. His childhood in eastern Paris, between a mother overwhelmed by health problems and a father who died in a car accident when he was 15. In his twenties, he tried to join the army but was injured while parachuting. This was followed by rapid radicalization followed by a departure for Iraq. He downplayed it to the personality investigator, speaking of a “committed humanitarian adventure”. When asked about this expression, Fatma laughs bitterly. “Humanitarian work, wow. Like my brother, he does humanitarian work and ends up as the emir of Daesh…” And she insists: “They have hatred in their hearts.”
“I thank her for humiliating me”
After he left, Fatma sank into alcohol and drugs, married a cousin in Tunisia before meeting the man with whom she built her life and had three children. “I have a very good life today,” she insists. She never met Peter Cherif again. Until today, that is. Impassive throughout the hearing, the accused comes out of his reserve, apologizes to her for “the injustices she suffered”, while denying having raped and sequestered her. “I dispute many facts but I recognize her pain and it is justified,” he insists, assuring “to condemn his past and the character he was”.
“I thank her for humiliating me, public humiliation is crucial for those who want to have wisdom,” he said solemnly. Will this story have a legal follow-up? Fatma assured that a complaint was ready but that she never dared to follow through with the process. “I was very, very afraid of Peter Cherif. Today, I am a little afraid but I think that this fear will go away,” she confided.