At his trial, Peter Cherif still denies any involvement in the 2015 attacks

Suspected of being the mastermind of the attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the Hypercacher, French jihadist Peter Cherif will appear before the Paris Assize Court starting Monday. He is being prosecuted for “terrorist criminal association”.

He is one of the oldest French jihadists. Peter Cherif’s trial opened on Monday, September 16 in the morning before the Paris Assize Court, specially composed for this occasion. Arrested late in 2018 in Djibouti, he was unable to be tried at the time of the trial of the January 2015 attacks, four years ago. Suspected of being the mastermind of the 2015 attack, Peter Cherif is being prosecuted by the courts for “terrorist criminal association”, after seven years spent in the ranks of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The accused is present for the first time in a box. His appearance contrasts with his last appearance in the courtroom. It was four years ago, during the trial of the Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher attacks, he was heard as a witness by videoconference from his prison in Bois d’Arcy, in Yvelines. He appeared on the screen, slumped in his chair and in a hooded sweatshirt. He recited suras from the Koran, he had just let slip that “No” he had nothing to do with the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Now he is in a fitted gray suit, impeccable white shirt and big glasses, a mask hiding half of his face. Peter Cherif, 42, politely answers the judge: “No, I do not acknowledge the facts with which I am accused.” The civil parties hope that this time he will explain his role within Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which claimed responsibility for the attack on the newspaper. He has always denied his involvement. According to a confidence from his lawyer, he would not be averse to talking if the right conditions are met. He will be heard on Tuesday about his personality.

The jihadist left France at the age of 22 to fight in Iraq, then in Syria and Tunisia. He then spent more than seven years in Yemen as a leader in the ranks of AQAP. He was arrested in Djibouti in 2018. It was in Yemen that the decision was made to carry out the attack on Charlie Hebdo. It was also in Yemen that his great childhood friend, Cherif Kouachi, came to visit him. The latter left with a job abroad, namely the attack on the satirical newspaper.

The investigation did not prove that Peter Cherif was the instigator, but he is being tried for “terrorist criminal association”. He is also being prosecuted for having been the jailer of three French aid workers, taken hostage in Yemen in a cave for nearly six months in 2011. Since his arrest, Peter Cherif has never agreed to speak to the judges. He had confided to one of his fellow detainees that he was sorry to have returned to a “country of kouffar”A “country of unbelievers” in Arabic.