Nearly 10 years after Islamic terrorists broke into the offices of Charlie Hebdo, Peter Cherif, one of the last Al-Qaeda jihadists accused of participating in preparations for the attack, was brought to trial earlier this fall. The case was tricky because the attack, which occurred in January 2015, was actually planned in Yemen in the spring of 2011. At that time, Peter Cherif was the only known French-speaking member of the terrorist organization behind the attack, Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). In addition, the two brothers who carried out the massacre, Chérif and Said Kouachi, had long been members of the same violent and extremist circles in which Cherif ran. The three were friends.
Throughout the 3-week trial, Peter Cherif proved a difficult witness, refusing to answer almost all of the prosecution team’s questions. Here are some of the facts behind the case.
- * Peter Cherif and Chérif Kouachi met in the early 2000s in Paris when Kouachi and his brother (Said) joined a terrorist cell called, des Buttes-Chaumont, where Cherif was Kouachi’s mentor.
- * The Kouachi brothers and Cherif were radicalized by Farid Benyettou, a self-taught emir who led the group and who dispatched young jihadists to fight against US forces in Iraq.
- * Cherif went to Iraq in 2004 and Kouachi had planned to follow him in 2005 but was arrested before his departure.
- * While in Iraq, Cherif was captured by the Americans but managed to escape his Bagdad prison in 2007.
- * From there, Cherif went to Syria where he was picked up and extradited to France in 2009.
- * Cherif fled to Yemen in 2011 while awaiting trial.
- * Kouachi arrived in Yemen shortly after Cherif, where he (Kouachi) underwent a 3-week training program with AQAP, and left with instructions and funding for an attack on Charlie Hebdo.
- * In January 2015, the Kouachi brothers carried out the attack on the popular satirical weekly, killing 12 and injuring 11 members of Charlie Hebdo’s staff. The brothers were killed two days later in a gunfight with police.
- * Cherif was arrested in Djibouti in December 2018 (nearly 4 years after the attack) and extradited to France.
The Damning Testimony of an Ex-Wife
Despite Cherif’s unresponsiveness in “le box”, his trial was punctuated by several dramatic witnesses. The first of these was Cherif’s ex-wife, identified as Fatma A., who, panicking upon seeing Cherif, fled from the courtroom. After finding the strength to return, Fatma told the court how her brother had pulled her from school when she was 11 years old. Thereafter, she’d lived a sequestered life alongside her mother. When she was 17, her brother forced her to marry Cherif in a religious ceremony.
When Fatma resisted sex with her new husband, he raped her. Having nowhere to go but home, she fled to her mother and was returned to Cherif. Unable to keep an eye on her 24 hours/day, Cherif brought her to his mother’s house where she was not allowed to leave his bedroom. There she remained for three months, surviving on Kellog’s Honey Pops when she wasn’t being raped or beaten by Cherif. Her only outings were in the company of Cherif when they attended religious services or gathered wild foods. She added that she felt freest during this latter activity since she was allowed to remove her 7-layer “voile intégral“.
« Il ne faut pas confondre l’islam avec ces personnes. Ces gens ont de la haine dans leur cœur, ils ne regardent le Coran que pour voir ce qui a un rapport avec la guerre. Où est la sagesse ? Ces gens-là ne changent pas, ils aiment le crime. »
“You mustn’t confuse Islam with these people. They have hate in their hearts, they only look to the Koran to use whatever connects to war. Where is the wisdom? These people don’t change, they love crime.”
« Aujourd’hui, c’est moi qui suis gagnante, voilà où je suis et voilà où il en est. J’ai une vie stable, un mari, deux enfants, une chienne malinois… Si je veux boire un verre de vin, je le bois, si je veux danser, je danse. Si j’ai pas porté plainte, c’est que j’ai tellement pas envie de voir sa tronche, de revoir cette pourriture… J’espère que, grâce à ce procès, j’aurai la force de déposer plainte, pour que mes enfants sachent que je suis une femme forte, que je me suis sauvée toute seule, reconstruite toute seule… »
— Fatma A.
“Today, it’s me who has won, look where I am and look where he is. I have a stable life, a husband, two children, a sheepdog… If I want to drink a glass of wine, I drink it, if I want to dance, I dance. If I haven’t pressed charges, it’s because I really don’t want to see his face, to see this scumbag again… I hope that, by means of this trial, I’ll have the strength to press charges, so that my children know that I am a strong woman, that saved herself by herself, remade herself all alone…”
— Fatma A.
Surprisingly, when Cherif was given the opportunity to respond, he broke from his long-held silence.
« J’avais prévu de ne rien dire tout au long de ce procès… Mais, avec ce témoignage qui sort du cœur, j’étais obligé de sortir de ma réserve. Je souhaite lui présenter mes excuses, lui dire qu’elle a effectivement subi des injustices, et que nous avons prétexté la religion pour ce faire. Je la remercie de m’avoir mis face à ma réalité »
— Peter Cherif
“I had planned to say nothing throughout this trial… But, with this testimony that comes from the heart, I was obliged to break my silence. I wish to apologize to her, to tell her that she was indeed subjected to injustices, and that we used religion as a pretext to do this. I thank her for having put me face to face with my reality.”
— Peter Cherif
He went on to contest some of his ex-wife’s claims but said he didn’t want to add to the pain he had already inflicted. He invited the young woman to press charges against him in order to “exorcize” her suffering. But according to a report in Le Monde, the invitation sounded more like an authorization—a last-ditch effort to restore some of the power he’d once held over her.
A Radical Transformation
A day after Fatma’s testimony, a former girlfriend, referred to as Barbara P., painted a different picture of the accused. Speaking via videoconference, Barbara described how she’d met Cherif in middle school and although he’d been a class clown, she’d found him endearing. Sometime around the age of 21, the two fell in love. At the time, Cherif wasn’t religious and hadn’t yet met Farid Benyettou, the self-proclaimed Islamic preacher who trained French jihadists and sent them to fight in Iraq.
They spent a year together as a couple. There was even talk of marriage. However, after Peter began attending Benyettou’s sermons, he changed into another person within months—as did 7 of his friends from their neighborhood, among them the Kouachi brothers. Suddenly, Cherif couldn’t be in the same room with Barbara because she was a woman. He eventually broke off their relationship on the pretext that she wasn’t Muslim.
Initially, Barbara P. was determined to prevent her boyfriend from succumbing to Benyettou’s radical tenets. Trying to bring him back to “reason”, she told him he had fallen into a cult and that their separation was absurd. Her arguments fell on deaf ears. Powerless, she watched as Cherif closed himself off, impervious to attitudes and feelings that had once united them.
Barbara P. now lives in southern France where she’s the director of a daycare center. When she learned about Fatma A.’s experience, which took place 6 years after her split with Cherif, she was shocked.
« Je ne l’ai pas reconnu. Moi j’ai connu Peter Cherif, là vous jugez Abu Hamza [son nom de guerre]. Il était drôle, doux, gentil, tout ce qu’on peut attendre d’un petit ami. Je ne connais pas la personne que vous avez en face de vous… »
— Barbara P.
I didn’t recognize him. Me, I knew Peter Cherif, here you are judging Abu Hamza [Cherif’s nom de guerre]. He was funny, sweet, kind, everything that you’d want from a boyfriend. I don’t know the person you have in front of you…”
— Barbara P.
What happened to her sweet jokester who transformed into a violent Islamic extremist?
« Je pense qu’on a profité de ses fragilités, de son absence d’attaches, pour lui promettre un destin, des frères en Irak. On l’a utilisé, au début en tout cas… »
— Barbara P.
I think people took advantage of his frailties, of his lack of connections, to promise him a destiny, his brothers in Iraq. They used him, at least in the beginning…”
— Barbara P.
“We brought you all the issues that you’ve missed since 2015!” by Coco. © Charlie Hebdo
A Repentant Ringleader
Back in 2005, after Peter Cherif had gone off to Iraq to launch his jihadist career, several members in the Buttes-Chaumont cell, including Chérif Kouachi and the cell’s leader Farid Benyettou were arrested and sentenced to jail. While behind bars, Kouachi’s radical convictions only strengthened. However, Benyettou began to have doubts about the cause he’d been advancing. He claims his deradicalization continued after his release in 2009.
Once freed, Benyettou tried to keep his former colleagues at arm’s length but wasn’t entirely successful. Chérif Kouachi, for example, knew where he lived and Benyettou lacked the means to go into hiding. He tried to temper Kouachi’s radical beliefs and wrongly assumed the hardened jihadist was committed to waging war abroad, not in France.
At the time of the Charlie Hebdo attack, Benyettou was studying to become a nurse. He had just finished the night shift in a Paris hospital and was asleep when the Kouachi brothers stormed the weekly journal’s offices. Upon waking, news reports informed an incredulous Benyettou that police were looking for his friends. When their mug shots appeared on his television, he stared in disbelief but shortly thereafter, upon hearing an audio recording of Chérif Kouachi’s voice, he knew his former disciples were guilty. He contacted French intelligence services and offered to help with the investigation.
Filled with remorse for having “preached hatred”, Benyettou began working with an association that helps deradicalize other indoctrinated extremists. In September, when he appeared at Cherif’s trial, he was earning a living as a heavy truck driver. With regret, Benyettou admitted to his role in recruiting and then sending the majority of his students to their deaths in Iraq and Syria. As he faced Peter Cherif, he was overtaken by emotion and repeatedly asked the accused to forgive him.
According to the Le Monde, a conversation between the president of the tribunal and Benyettou then ensued.
« Vous avez reconnu votre responsabilité, expliqué votre évolution vis-à-vis de l’idéologie djihadiste. Où en est, selon vous, l’évolution de Peter Cherif ?
— la présidente
“You’ve admitted to your responsability, explained your evolution vis-à-vis the jihadist ideology. Where in this, according to you, lies the evolution of Peter Cherif?”
— the president
– Le processus est long, complexe. J’ai moi-même longtemps été dans une période grise. Mais j’ai eu l’impression de percevoir quelque chose chez lui. Moi, j’ai envie d’y croire. Mais mon rôle n’est pas le même que le vôtre…
— Farid Benyettou
“The process [of deradicalization] is long, complex. I myself was for a long time in a grey zone. But I felt that I could see something in him. I wanted to believe he could extract himself. But my role isn’t the same as yours…”
— Farid Benyettou
– Quel sens peut avoir, selon vous, le mutisme de Peter Cherif, alors qu’il y a chez lui une vraie capacité de réflexion ?
— la présidente
“According to you, how does Peter Cherif’s mutism make any sense, if he indeed has a capacity for reflection?”
— the president
– Je ne sais pas, je ne comprends pas… »
— Farid Benyettou
“I don’t know, I don’t understand…”
— Farid Benyettou
And so began the second interrogation of Peter Cherif, who continued his refusal to answer questions regarding his activities in Yemen or the recruitment of Chérif Kouachi. Without prompting, however, he volunteered his admiration for “the morals of Charles Ingalls” the father from the television series Little House on the Prairie and the teachings of Spinoza, whom he’d studied in prison.
When asked if he admitted or regretted his affiliation with Al-Qaeda, he said “I regret”. And, did he condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo? “I condemn all attacks” he replied. Had he played a role in the attack? “I didn’t play a role, to one degree or another, in the attack on Charlie Hebdo“. And then, like a disinterested turtle, Peter Cherif drew back into his shell of silence.
A Crack in the Dike
Near the end of the trial, every survivor of the Charlie Hebdo attack appeared before the defendant to recount their experience and the ongoing suffering that had been inflicted upon them. After each witness, Cherif was given a chance to respond. His reactions were precisely divided into two categories. When the testimony came from a member of Charlie Hebdo’s staff, Cherif remained mute. However, for all the other victims, police officers, and children or spouses of those killed, he rattled off the same, carbon-copy assurance, J’entends votre douleur, vous avez toute ma compassion, “I hear your pain, you have all my compassion.”
The bifurcating pattern was broken, however, after the last victim, Sigolène Vinson, came to the bar. On January 7, 2015, Vinson, a journalist with a law degree, charged with covering the judicial system, was attending Charlie’s weekly editorial meeting when the Kouachis barged in and began their slaughter. Now standing before the court, she proceeded to revisit the horrors she’d witnessed and previously recounted in an earlier trial, in closed hearings, in interviews with various media outlets, and in the columns of Charlie Hebdo.
Vinson described how she’d been seated between Laurent Léger (who survived) and Georges Wolinski (who was killed). How one by one, the assailants picked off eight of her co-workers. How she’d crawled behind a partition to hide and found herself face to face with Chérif Kouachi who told her not to be afraid, that he wouldn’t kill her, but that what she was doing was wrong and that she should read the Koran. How in the silence that followed she surveyed the bloody landscape before her. Perhaps for many in the courtroom, including the defendant, all of this was old news.
Then came a part of her story that was new. Vinson had grown up in Djibouti, the country where French authorities finally caught up with Peter Cherif in 2018. Since the attack, Vinson had given up on the idea that anything actually mattered. Yet, she hoped that what she was about to describe might open a crack of mutual understanding between her and the defendant and provoke Cherif to break his silence. She talked about her fondness for the country of her childhood, the daily calls to prayer, the hours spent counting shark fins in the Gulf of Tadjoura, how her green eyes often led people to assume she was Yemeni.
In 2018, she’d returned to Djibouti for the first time since the attack. One day, a friend called to say that Peter Cherif, a possible planner of the massacre that forever changed her life, had just been arrested. In a bizarre twist of fate, he was scheduled to return to France on the same flight where she had already booked a seat to go home.
« Peter Cherif et moi, nous avons passé sept heures ensemble dans les airs… Je voulais me lever pour lui parler, j’aurais voulu qu’il me dise quelque chose. Pourquoi ces morts ? Pourquoi mes amis privés de mari, de père ? Mais je ne me suis pas levée. Ce que je n’ai pas fait dans l’avion, je le fais aujourd’hui », dit-elle, avant de s’adresser à l’accusé : « Dans votre façon de voir les choses, vous avez sûrement besoin de donner un sens à tout ça… »
— Sigolène Vinson
“Peter Cherif and I, we spent seven hours in the air together… I wanted to get up and talk to him, I would have wanted him to say something to me. Why these deaths? Why were my friends deprived of their husbands, their fathers? But I didn’t get up. What I failed to do in the plane, I’m doing today.” Then turning to Cherif: “From your perspective, you must surely need to shed some light on all this…”
— Sigolène Vinson
Sigolène talked about how the people on either side of the courtroom resided in a nearly impenetrable bubble. How Cherif and she thought very differently about the world. She wasn’t looking to make sense of all that. She was simply extending a hand and hoping to provoke some sort of response.
« Pour moi, ces coïncidences ne sont pas étranges. Vous avez parlé du verbe tout à l’heure, le verbe est sacré pour moi. On dit que la parole la plus éloquente, c’est lorsqu’on arrive à mettre le plus de sens dans la parole la plus courte possible. Pour moi, le mot qui correspond à votre témoignage et à ce qui m’arrive aujourd’hui, c’est le destin. »
— Peter Cherif
“For me, these coincidences are not strange. You just now spoke of language, for me language is sacred. They say that the most eloquent words are when one manages to put the most sense into the fewest words possible. For me, the word that corresponds to your testimony and to what happens to me today, is destiny.”
— Peter Cherif
“I also spent time with the Kouachis. I spent time with them and they’re cowards who hide behind their ski masks. I met them on January 7, 2015, and ever since then, they haven’t left. —by Biche, © Charlie Hebdo
Choices
In the end, the 42-year-old Cherif was sentenced to life in prison for the role he had played in Yemen during the planning of the Charlie Hebdo attack and also for his role as jailer in the kidnapping of three French aid workers held captive for 6 months. Although he denied playing a role in the attack, he had refused to say anything regarding his activities in Yemen or his relationship with Chérif Kouachi. He spoke not a word about the massacre or the motivations of the terrorist organization behind it (AQPA), an organization he worked for for roughly seven years.
Absent from this post are descriptions of Cherif’s upbringing and that of his cohort—the Kouachi brothers, Farid Benyettou, and others in the Buttes de Chaumont cell. They all grew up in abusive households served by crime-ridden housing projects and failing schools. Like many of their peers, they began engaging in criminal activities at a young age.
« Ce procès, je le prépare depuis que j’ai l’âge de 20 ans. Je me suis toujours imaginé comme ça, à devoir parler devant une cour, à préparer ces mots pour les prononcer devant une cour. Ces choses-là ont résonné dans ma vie, je ne peux pas expliquer pourquoi… »
— Peter Cherif
“This trial, I’ve been preparing for it since I was 20 years old. I have always imagined myself like this, having to speak in front of a court, preparing these words to pronounce before a court. These things have resonated throughout my life, I can’t explain why…”
— Peter Cherif
Whether intentional or not, Cherif’s admission serves as a reminder that ignoring the misery of the least fortunate among us too often leads to devastating consequences. However, I’ll leave the last words to Benjamin Chambre, a representative from the prosecutor’s office. This is what he proposed during the trial, after Peter Cherif’s minimalist oration on destiny.
« M. Cherif, vous ne partagez pas de destin commun avec Sigolène Vinson. Elle n’a pas choisi, elle a subi les choses. Vous, vous avez choisi d’aller chez Al-Qaida au Yémen, vous avez choisi une organisation qui honnissait Charlie Hebdo, c’est complètement différent…»
— Benjamin Chambre
“Monsieur Cherif, you do not share a common destiny with Sigolène Vinson. She did not choose, she was subjected to things. You, you chose to ally yourself with Al-Qaeda in Yemen, you chose an organization that deeply despised Charlie Hebdo, that is completely different…”
— Benjamin Chambre
Left wondering how much different his life would have been if he simply followed his heart @ his relationship with Barbara P.
No offense to any nationality whether it be Muslim or otherwise, but genuine love is worth pursuing whether your respective partner is this or that nationality. Saddens and angers me to think of the innocent lives lost due to radicalized hatred.
Just my two cents, Carol, Happy Friday! and best wishes to you for a wonderful weekend too.
You’re absolutely right Gene. Genuine love is not to be squandered. Thanks for adding your two cents.
This is disturbing and fascinating, Carol. I wept as I read his ex-wife’s testimony. Her new life and her willingness to confront the man who enslaved and brutalized her were rays of light in a story that had so much horror.
With regard to your sensible comment about the effects of a society’s ignoring the impact on young people of such dreadful early experiences, I tend to agree—and yet the same person seemed to have been a different person during his relationship with Barbara. And we know many children escape egregious circumstances and thrive despite (or because of?) them.
How to fortify malleable individuals so they can withstand radicalization of any kind remains a huge question.
I wholeheartedly agree with your first sentence Annie. The stories behind each of the main characters are fascinating. I especially want to learn more about Fatma A. I heard her talk about her escape from her mother-law’s apartment and was amazed by her courage and resourcefulness. She had absolutely nothing except the clothes on her back when she left. She couldn’t return to the neighborhoods where she might find a friend to help because she’d risk being recognized and dragged back to her husband. Instead she went straight to university areas where profs lived because she’d somehow learned that nannies were in short supply. She got a job and went from there.
“How to fortify malleable individuals so they can withstand radicalization of any kind remains a huge question.” I wish we would invest as much energy and financial support to such questions as we invest in efforts to designed to force women to birth children that they can’t or don’t wish to support.
A difficult post Carol…
Reading accounts of similar trials in France… The trial of Accomplices in the Samuel Patty murder is under way… One reads the same thing over and over again… “I regret, I regret…” personally? I believe it’s a lot of BS. They’re coached by their lawyers to say that… There is a major problem in France with Islam. Girls and women in particular are assaulted daily… It is a major threat for the republic. Compounded by a large leniency of the courts… A good third of judges belong to the Syndicat de la magistrature… very left-leaning. “Everything is the fault of society would seem to be their motto.
That problem will have to be faced very seriously in France and the sooner the better. One might also mention that within the very large Moslem population in France, only a handful have chosen terrorism. The others? They probably just want to live in peace….
I remember the Paty murder. I did a post about it at the time. There was a great deal of mass public outrage about it. Apparently the public understands the problem even if the ivory-tower judges don’t.
If the system continues to be lenient with these religion-deranged murderers and rapists running amuck, eventually Le Pen or somebody like her will get elected president. After that I expect things will change rather rapidly.
Indeed the public understands. They live in the real world… Not the judges…
I saw Marjane Satrapi’s name in the news last month and had also wanted to write a post about her. You may recall that she’s the Franco-Iranian author who wrote Persepolis and other wonderful autobiographical graphic novels. She’s been challenging leftwing politicians who equate the wearing of the veil with allowing liberated women to do as they choose. Satrapi argues that the veil is not a sign of emancipation, it’s a sign of oppression and she’s tired of kind-hearted liberals who think they’re doing the right thing by unconditionally supporting practically anything having to do with Islam.
The most outspoken voices against veil and religious oppression are women of foreign ancestry. Iran, Magreb… Abnousse Shalmani is a great writer and editorialist… It’s funny how the French left refuses to listen to the people who “have been there.”
I hope that this is changing.
Likewise, though sadly I don’t see it soon.
PS. There is another recent case you might find of interest. It shows the complexity of the relationship between France and the South of the Mediterranean. Kamel Daoud is an Algerian journalist and a writer who was practically forced into exile in France. He was just awarded the Goncourt for his novel “Houris” which tells of the civil war in Algeria against the fundamentalists.
Ever since Daoud (who writes so beautifully in French) got the Goncourt, he’s been submitted to a hate campaign in Algeria. His book is banned, he’s insulted just about every day…
A week ago, maybe because they could not get to Daoud directly, the Algerian authorities have arrested another Algerian writer, a friend of Daoud, who had decided to stay in Algeria…
Boualem Sansal is past 70, what kind of a threat is he to anyone? Well, he’s been arrested. One can only wonder what pushes any government to arrest a writer… Seules les dictatures…
Look him up: Boualem Sansal… I hope they let him go…
Bon week-end mon amie.
Oh my! Yes, I am quite interested. I didn’t know about the controversy over Daoud’s Goncourt. I read his Mersault Contre-Enquete a few years ago and thoroughly appreciated it. His latest has been sitting in my shopping basket at Lireka.com along with Gael Faye’s Jacaranda, which won the Renaudot. I don’t normally rush out and order books at full price but I really loved Petit Pays by Faye and want to support both authors. Your info about the pushback against Daoud might just be the motivation I need to finalize my order. 🙂
Man, I hate to see writers under attack but putting a septuagenarian behind bars? A book club I’m in just finished a memoir by a pied-noir who was raised in Algeria until her family had to flee in 1962. It was pretty sobering. We had our discussion last night and someone was wondering about the state of Algerian-French relations right now. No one in the group really knew. This development with Sansai doesn’t bode well. Maybe you can add your perspective of the situation. Merci d’avance, Carol
Push the buy button on Lireka…
The current state of the realtionship? After Macron has spent years on his knees begging forgiveness of the Algerian gvt for all the “atrocities” France commited in Algeria, the Algerian gv just insults us at every possible occasion… And, above all, they focus everything on the “liberation war”, 60 years ago, because they have not been able to create a good life for their people. (You did read my post about our encounter with refugee pieds-noirs in Marseille, right?
I did not read that post, Brieuc, or don’t recall. Feel free to leave a link here.
There you are:
https://equinoxio21.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/a-marseille-sorrow/
Thanks for the link. Yes, now I recall reading your story. It’s a great post!!!
Merci “Carole”.
PS. MY “perspective”… I’m a post-colonial child. We arrived everywhere just after Independence. Cambodia. Guinea. Kenya. Just to name a few. Most of those countries have gone through terrible tragedies. (Kenya is still safe. ). So freedom was necessary? Yes. But what have they done of freedom?
And as a “postcolonial” I consider I do not have any responsibility in colonialism. And I am very tired to hear my government begging for mercy all the time…
(There. I’ve said it. LOL)
Ha! Luckily, you are still allowed to express your opinion.
Sadly, authoritarians are experts at playing the blame game. They bear no responsibility for the problems of society. It’s too bad that humans, regardless of the society to which they belong, are so susceptible to whiny finger-pointers.
Bonne fin du dimanche Brieuc.
Very true again.
Bonne semaine.
In the caption at the top of the Procès cartoon, it looks like Cherif has stolen Chérif’s accent aigu. I assume a further charge of theft was added for this.
Sourate in the cartoon about Cherif talking to himself is probably sûrah, the Arabic word for a chapter of the Koran (the h changes to t in certain contexts).
Seriously, it seems bizarre that he was arrested in 2018 and only brought to trial this year. I guess there’s nothing like the Sixth Amendment over there.
I can only hope that Vinson, Coco, Fatma A, and the other survivors of this maniac’s career of sadistic carnage can find some peace in his conviction, however pitifully inadequate the sentence. France really couldn’t bring back the guillotine, just this once?
Aside from being a sadist, Cherif strikes me as a weakling and a coward who still hasn’t come to grips with the atrocities he was involved in and still has no real principles or capacity for introspection. His formulaic, canned “assurance” to the families of the victims suggests merely parroting words he knows are expected of him. There is no actual compassion there.
I feel absolutely nothing for this utterly worthless man. Literally hundreds of millions of people grow up in abusive households, crime-ridden neighborhoods, etc without becoming rapists or accessories to mass murder. The fact that he was born into a religion which explicitly endorses violence against unbelievers probably helped him along that path, but again, millions of Muslims grow up in environments at least as deprived and bigoted and still don’t become terrorists. As the Chambre quote points out, he was in no sense a victim, he was an adult who freely made choices. I feel only for the courageous and intelligent writers and cartoonists he helped to murder.
You have an amazing eye Infidel and once again helped me catch a typo (in my headline!!! no less). Peter Cherif is spelled without an accent, while Chérif Kouachi has one. I thought I was extremely thorough about keeping this straight but noooo! Haha. I guess Coco might have made the same mistake but I love that cartoon.
Interesting to learn that about the French sourate. When I looked up the English translation, I got sourate or sorate but on this topic, I defer to your expertise and have made the change.
I agree that Cherif is not rehabilitatable but I don’t think we can blame his radicalization on a Muslim upbringing. His family wasn’t particularly religious. In working on this story, I watched a documentary that featured the organization that Benyettou works for. In the report they talked with a young French woman who grew up in a secular household. There was no religion whatsoever. She had zero ties to the Middle East, no relatives that came from Muslim countries. Unlike Cherif, she was shy and withdrawn in school. A perfectly attractive and vibrant young woman but seemed to have no self confidence. Her father had been an abusive alcoholic and she ended up getting recruited online. The thing that attracted her to Islam was the anti-alcohol stance and she wasn’t worldly enough to recognize that she was falling prey to an extremist sect. Over time she adopted more and more of their practices and had tried on 4 occasions to leave France to go to Syria. Luckily, she was stopped by French authorities each time. Now she was in the deradicalization program. For her sake, I hope it works.
These terrorists really need to come up with more distinctive names to avoid confusion. Let’s hope that soon the remaining diehard jihadists Chèrif, Chêrif, and Chërif will be brought to justice.
I did observe that Cherif can’t blame his actions on being raised Muslim since, obviously, millions of Muslims grow up similarly (or even in highly religious environments) but don’t become terrorists. Outside influences certainly have an impact, but ultimately (except in cases of explicit coercion) the responsibility for an individual’s behavior can be assigned only to that individual.
The woman you mentioned sounds like an unfortunate case, but there has lately been a trickle of Western women getting recruited into Islam. Often it happens via getting involved with a Muslim man, but I can see that in her case the religion’s anti-alcohol stance would appeal to one with an abusive alcoholic father. Still, I find it hard to believe that even the most naïve person nowadays could get involved with Islam and not be on the alert for the violent extremist elements thereof. You’d need to be illiterate and living in a cave to not know about September 11, Beslan, October 7, Charlie Hebdo, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and the rest of their endless list of demonstrations of piety. No other religion in modern times has such a track record.
Thank goodness at least the Kouachi brothers were permanently de-radicalized by the police. Now they’re Satan’s problem.
What a riveting post. I could not stop once I started.
I’m glad you appreciated it Henry. The witness testimonies provide for pretty dramatic reading. Thanks for stopping by.
Very sad story. I was really shocked by this deadly 2015 assault on a French newsroom. I will never understand it but found your account interesting.
Yes, the attack on Charlie Hebdo shook people all over the world. The publication had lived with death threats for years and had a tight security system in place that unfortunately, proved fairly easy to thwart. We tell ourselves that if we just take stricter and stricter precautions we can protect ourselves from madmen wielding AR15s or the like. Rarely is this true.
Thanks for stopping by.