Life imprisonment was requested against Peter Cherif on Wednesday, October 2, during his trial before the Paris Special Assize Court. The jihadist has been on trial since September 16 for the role he may have played in Yemen with Chérif Kouachi, one of the newspaper’s attackers. Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and for the kidnapping of three humanitarian workers in 2011.
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In her submissions, the Attorney General, Aurélie Valente, requested that this sentence be accompanied by a security period of twenty-two years. Peter Cherif, aged 42, is appearing for criminal terrorist conspiracy between 2011 and 2018, the period of his presence in Yemen within Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Right to silence
He is accused of having joined the ranks of this jihadist organization and, in this context, he is suspected of having participated in the training of his childhood friend Chérif Kouachi with a view to the attack committed on January 7, 2015 at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdoduring which twelve 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.
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During the trial, Peter Cherif, who used his right to silence most of the time, nevertheless admitted to having been one of the jailers of the three humanitarian workers, having served as “translator” to act as an interface between the hostages and their Yemeni Al-Qaeda captors.
On the other hand, he denied having played a role in the attack on Charlie Hebdo and claimed not to have participated in its preparation. But he retreated behind silence when the questions became more precise. For DGSI investigators, a “cluster of clues” on the contrary allows us to conclude that he played a “pivotal role in the preparation and conditioning of Chérif Kouachi” for the attack on the satirical newspaper.
