After seven hours of deliberation, the special court of Paris declared the jihadist Peter Cherif ” guilty “ of all the acts accused of him, on Thursday, September 3 at the end of the day, and sentenced him to life imprisonment, accompanied by a security period of twenty-two years, in accordance with the requests of the Public Ministry.
The president, Frédérique Aline, specified that this 42-year-old jihad veteran was ” guilty “ of having joined Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen for seven years, which was not discussed, ” guilty “ of having been one of the jailers of three French humanitarian workers detained by this group in 2011, which he partially admitted at the hearing, and ” guilty “finally, have “participated” to the recruitment by AQAP of his friend Chérif Kouachi to commit an attack against charlie hebdowhat he always denied.
Regarding this last aspect, the only one really questioned, the court considered that Peter Cherif had “ease” the arrival of his friend Chérif Kouachi to Yemen and his “integration into the ranks of AQAP” in the summer of 2011, and that she had remained in contact with him after his return to France by having “knowledge of the terrorist mission entrusted to him”. she justified “extreme severity” of the sentence pronounced by “extreme gravity” facts and “dangerousness” of the accused.
A “resigned defense”
This trial was marked, throughout its three weeks of hearing, by the astonishing discretion of the defense. A few hours before the verdict was announced, on Thursday morning, we almost discovered the sound of the voices of his two lawyers. “Finally, finally the time has come to defend Peter Cherif”sighed in a curious confession Mmy Sefen Guez Guez opening his argument. In fact, apart from some interventions even stranger than those of his client, Mmy Guez Guez and his colleague Mmy Nabil El Ouchikli was conspicuous by his absence during these fourteen days of hearing.
This absence of words even became a total absence, during three days that were, however, central to this process: the two lawyers were replaced by a young colleague and then a young colleague, who neither knew the file, the day of the first interrogation of Peter Cherif on the merits, but also during his second interrogation, as well as the first day of the civil parties’ testimonies.
An incomprehensible and, above all, inexplicable policy of empty chairs, which the president lamented on September 27: “Unlike usual, every day I find out whether Peter Cherif’s lawyers will be present or not. I’ve never seen that…” During his arraignment on Wednesday, the prosecutor reprimanded him for “Defense as light as it was intermittent, even resigned, that did not do justice to the debates”.
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