Peter Cherif, the jihadist in a suit

Narrative On the first day of his trial, the French jihadist announced that he would contest the accusations brought against him by the anti-terrorism services. This “veteran” of Al-Qaeda is appearing for his combat and terrorist activity in Yemen, for his links with Chérif Kouachi and his knowledge of the preparation of the attack against “Charlie Hebdo” in January 2015, as well as for the kidnapping of three humanitarian workers in Yemen.

This is the trial of one of the most important French jihadists. He was long placed at the top of the list of people wanted by the DGSE, the DGSI and the CIA before being arrested in December 2018 in Djibouti. He is considered the inspiration for the Kouachi brothers, the perpetrators of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. He single-handedly embodies a whole section of Islamic terrorism and anti-Semitism in France. The fact that he is appearing for the first time before the courts is an achievement in itself.

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However, in the first minute of the hearing which begins this Monday, September 16 before the specially composed Paris Assize Court, it is a trivial question of clothing that comes the first surprise of the Peter Cherif trial.

Crisp white shirt, fitted gray suit

As if to offer the court the smoothest possible façade and, already, not to leave any rough spots where one could get hung up, the accused advances with Olympian calm. In an outfit never before worn in terrorist trials in recent years, Peter Cherif has put on an impeccable white shirt, a fitted gray suit and glasses that one could just as easily imagine sitting on the nose of a Swiss banker. His skull is smooth, impeccable. His beard, less full than in the wartime hours, is hidden for the moment by an immaculate surgical mask. In answering, his voice is calm. “Cherif, Peter, born on 26.8.82 in Paris-20^e »he announces.

For a brief moment, everyone imagines that he is suddenly ready to cooperate with justice, but he already makes it known that he has refused psychologists and psychiatrists who wanted to assess him and then, in the afternoon, when the president Frédérique Aline has finished reading the report of the charges against him, he articulates with courtesy and firmness: “I do not recognize the facts with which I am accused.”

Childhood friend of the Kouachi brothers

Since his arrest, Peter Cherif has not stopped proclaiming that the French anti-terrorism services are pursuing him for excessive charges. In a way, they have made him a suit that is too big for him. It must be said, at the time when the debates before the assize court begin and to use an expression that is more police than dressmaker, that there is something to dress him in: Peter Cherif, childhood friend of the Kouachi brothers in the 19^e district of Paris where they grew up before they joined the “Buttes-Chaumont gang”Peter Cherif, who left for Syria, Iraq and then Yemen with a reputation as a fighter, was in regular contact with Chérif Kouachi, one of the two killers of “Charlie Hebdo”.

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Finally, as the only Frenchman permanently established in the troops of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), he was knighted by Anwar al-Awlaqi, the terrorist group’s ideologue. The accused’s CV is sufficiently extensive to raise, under the indictment of the criminal terrorist association, the question of the connection between his career and the carrying out of the January 2015 attack against the “Charlie” cartoonists.

Several survivors from the editorial office, still under permanent police protection, made the trip this Monday morning to listen to the first hours of Peter Cherif’s trial. Looking at the cases judged in recent years in the room reserved for major anti-terrorist trials, they know that Peter Cherif’s journey could be rich in lessons on the genesis of what led to the bloodbath of January 7, 2015. The interrogations of the accused, spread out over the entire duration of the trial, will begin Tuesday morning.