To the specially composed assize court,
He appears in the dock wearing an elegant gray suit and a spotless white shirt that contrast with his thick glasses and the surgical mask that covers his face. He stands up and responds briefly, yes, but politely, to the president of the specially composed assize court who checks his identity, questions him about his mother’s state of health or his position on the case. “I do not recognize the facts that I am accused of,” he repeats twice. Clues that suggest that Peter Cherif, a veteran of jihad, who spent many years in the ranks of Al-Qaeda, seems willing to participate in his trial. “To deliver his truth,” in the words of one of his lawyers, Me Sefen Guez Guez.
If his behavior was so closely scrutinized on Monday, the first day of his trial, it is in particular because his last appearance before a criminal court left a chilling memory. On October 23, 2020, this childhood friend of Chérif Kouachi – one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers – was heard as a witness in the trial of the January 2015 attacks. He is suspected of having details on the preparations for the attack on the satirical newspaper but was arrested too late to appear in the dock. Heard by videoconference from his prison in Bois-d’Arcy, in the Yvelines, Peter Cherif refuses to answer the slightest question, recites suras from the Koran, makes proselytizing remarks and finally lets go: “I was forced to come and testify on a case that I had nothing to do with (sic), I will not answer any questions.”
Gray areas
It remains to be seen whether this first impression, this Monday, sets the tone for the trial. In a sign that the man is considered a missing piece in the Charlie Hebdo attack, several victims have made the trip and will testify next week. “We expect Peter Cherif to answer our questions in a way other than by quoting the Koran,” Richard Malka, Charlie Hebdo’s lawyer, told the press at the opening of the trial. And he insisted: “How do we go from Buttes-Chaumont to Bin Laden’s?”
Will Peter Cherif explain his role within Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and more specifically about that summer of 2011 when Chérif Kouachi visited him in Yemen? It was probably during this trip that the younger of the Kouachi brothers received the order to attack Charlie Hebdo. Silent during the investigation, the accused has always denied his involvement, claiming that he was unaware of the details of his mission. The four years of investigation have not in fact allowed to demonstrate that Peter Cherif had helped his friend – they have known each other since adolescence – in his deadly plan, which is why he is not being tried for complicity in terrorist assassination.
What about his role in the kidnapping of three French hostages in Yemen in 2011? The latter, held captive for three months, never saw the face of the man they nicknamed the “Frenchman” or the “translator”, systematically hidden under a scarf. Here again, he denies the facts. His wife, who died of cancer in 2022, had however admitted her involvement. Already convicted for having left in 2004 for Iraq to fight the Americans in the ranks of Al-Qaeda, Peter Cherif faces life imprisonment.