At the Paris Special Assize Court, the trial of Peter Cherif is coming to an end. On Wednesday, life imprisonment was requested against the jihadist, tried in particular for the role he may have played in Yemen with Chérif Kouachi, one of the newspaper’s attackers. Charlie Hebdo in 2015.
Attorney General Aurélie Valente also wanted this sentence to be accompanied by a security period of 22 years. At the end of a two-part indictment, delivered with her colleague Benjamin Chambre, she asked the court to recognize Peter Cherif “guilty” of all the charges with which he is accused.
Confessions but not on “Charlie Hebdo”
The accused has been on trial since September 16 for criminal terrorist association between 2011 and 2018, the period of his presence in Yemen within Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). He is accused of having joined the ranks of this jihadist organization and, in this context, of having participated in the training of his childhood friend Chérif Kouachi in the attack committed on January 7, 2015 against Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were murdered. The attack was claimed by AQAP.
He is also appearing for the organized gang kidnapping in 2011, for more than five months, of three French nationals, members of the NGO Triangle Génération Humitaireitaire. Peter Cherif, who used his right to silence most of the time, nevertheless admitted during the trial to having been one of the jailers of the three humanitarian workers. On the other hand, he refuted having played a role in the Charlie Hebdo attack. But he retreated behind silence when the questions became more precise.
Portrait of a “complete jihadist”
For more than four hours, the two representatives of the public prosecutor painted the portrait of an “integral jihadist” who was “the cornerstone of the preparation” of the Charlie Hebdo attack. As proof, in 2011, he “was the only French member of Aqpa”, a “paranoid” organization which since its creation has only integrated “very few foreigners”.
The satirical newspaper, which published caricatures of Mohammed in 2006, became an “obsession” for Aqpa from 2010, underlined Benjamin Chambre. “But it was only after the arrival of Peter Cherif (in Yemen) that this obsession became more precise and nominative,” he noted. The verdict should be delivered this Thursday, after the defense’s pleadings.