JUSTICE – His name has appeared in several cases linked to terrorism since the 2000s. And in particular that of the January 2015 attacks. Peter Cherif, a figure in the so-called “Buttes-Chaumont”is being tried from this Monday, September 16 before the specially composed assize court for criminal terrorist association between 2011 and 2018. A broad indictment qualification, which must stop on one question: what role could he have played in the attack against Charlie Hebdo ?
Death threats against Coco: Riss promises that “we will make more drawings like this”
Peter Cherif, aged 42, had a first opportunity to provide answers on 23 October 2020. That day, he was heard as a witness, by videoconference from his prison in the Paris region – where he was placed in pre-trial detention as part of another procedure – at the trial of the January 2015 attacks, which left 17 dead. But, questioned about his links with Chérif Kouachi, one of the two brothers who carried out the massacre, he remained silent for twenty minutes of heavy silence. “I was forced to come here to testify on a matter I have nothing to do with, I will not answer any questions”he simply says, after reciting the opening surah of the Koran in Arabic.
If he was only present as a witness, it was because he was arrested too late to be tried alongside the other accused. When he was arrested in 2018 in Djibouti, the investigation into the January 2015 attacks had already been closed. However, an independent procedure was opened immediately afterwards. It brought him before the courts on Monday, where he faces a life sentence.
Chérif Kouachi’s trip to Yemen
The trial that is opening concerns the period when the Paris native was in Yemen, within Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Considered a mentor for the Kouachi brothers, he has, according to the investigating judges, “facilitated integration” of the younger brother, Chérif, within the terrorist organization. It was in the name of this organization that the two attackers said they were acting at the time of the attacks.
Peter Cherif is said to have participated in organizing a trip to Yemen by Chérif Kouachi and another Frenchman, Salim Benghalem, relates Release. Chérif Kouachi was then given the mission of carrying out an attack against Charlie Hebdo. According to the testimony of a former member of AQAP, Peter Cherif acted as an intermediary between the two men and the leader of the organization, Anwar al-Awlaki – killed in a US strike in September 2011 – who allegedly gave them $20,000 to buy weapons and equipment and finance their return to France with a view to committing an attack. They also reportedly received training “ideological and military”the daily continues.
Declassified notes from the Intelligence Directorate of the Paris Police Prefecture, published by Mediapart in 2017, report on the links maintained by Peter Cherif and Chérif Kouachi in the years following this trip. By telephone or by email, like this exchange of emails located from an Internet café in Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine), not far from Kouachi’s home. For the investigating judges, Peter Cherif had ” awareness “ of the « mission » entrusted to Chérif Kouachi.
“A close friend of the Kouachi family”
The relationship between the two men began well before 2011 and the trip to Yemen. They are in fact childhood friends, both having spent their adolescence in the 19e Paris district, details The World. This is where they become radicalized through contact with the jihadist (who now calls himself a “repentant”) Farid Benyettou. They were both convicted (one in 2008 and the other in 2011) for their participation in the Buttes-Chaumont network, which organized the sending of jihadists to Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Peter Cherif was “a close friend of the Kouachi family”said a judicial source to the Parisian in 2015, adding about him: “With the exception of Afghanistan, he has been to all the theatres of jihad”. Also known by the pseudonym of« Abou Hamza »Cherif was arrested for the first time at the end of 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq, while fighting in the ranks of Al-Qaeda. He then escaped from an Iraqi prison in March 2007 before reaching Syria. Deported and transferred to France in early 2008, he was incarcerated there for a time before fleeing to Yemen in March 2011, on the last day of his trial in Paris, where he appeared as a free man. Sentenced to five years in prison for having fought in Iraq, he was immediately the subject of an arrest warrant with a view to serving his sentence. He was therefore arrested seven years later.
Missing piece in the trial of Charlie Hebdothe testimony of Peter Cherif – if he agrees to speak – could also shed light on the detention of three French people, members of the NGO Triangle Génération Humanitaire, held hostage in Yemen between May and November 2011. The humanitarians did not see the features of this jailer whom they called “the Frenchman” but the descriptions they gave put investigators on Cherif’s trail, as the The WorldHe is being tried for kidnapping and sequestration by an organized gang in this case.
During his interrogations, the accused “oscillated between silence and confidence”wrote Release in 2020. The attack on Charlie Hebdo, “It’s ugly for everyone”he said in particular. « We can only condemn, people have suffered […] I am not Charlie However, because I remain a Muslim, things should not have come to this.” Will he agree to say more during the trial scheduled to run until October 4? “Peter Cherif will have the opportunity, through this trial, to tell his truthone of his lawyers, Sefen Guez Guez, told AFP. He knows that the trial Charlie Hebdo weighs heavily in the balance but he will come to deliver a sincere word.
Also see on Le HuffPost :
“Jihadist projects”: four minors and one adult indicted for plans for violent actions
Appeal trial of the Nice attack: the two accused sentenced to 18 years in prison
