"He just told me that he took care of recruiting Amedy Coulibaly"

Who ordered the attacks perpetrated by the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly?

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• Since September 2, eleven defendants suspected of having provided aid to terrorists have been tried by the special assize court.

• Peter Cherif, suspected of being one of the sponsors of the attack, was indicted during his arrest in December 2018 but this component was disjointed due to his late arrest.

• A "ghost", widow of a Frenchman high in the "hierarchy" of the IS claims that her husband ordered the attacks

At the special assize court in Paris,

“You represent freedom, that's all they hate.

Before the special Assize Court which judges the attacks of January 2015 puts an end to her hearing, Sonia M. has one last message to convey.

“Compared to

 ” she explains, addressing the editorial staff of the satirical weekly.

“It's important that you keep going because that's what they really hate, don't let go.

This 31-year-old young woman, pink and white striped T-shirt, brown hair down to the shoulders, is however not a witness like the others.

Arrested in Turkey in January 2020 after spending six years in Syria, this "ghost", who now claims to be repentant, claims that the Hyper Cacher attack was sponsored by her late husband, Abdelnasser Benyoucef, alias Abou Mouthana.

If the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly were the armed forces of the attacks, the four and a half years of investigation, the hundreds of hearings, the analysis of nearly 37 million telephone data have not made it possible to identify the principals.

Several instructional mails were indeed unearthed in Amedy Coulibaly's computer - "Fé ske ta has fair today but simple *" he receives for example, three hours after the

attack

- but its author does not has never been confused.

The arrest of Sonia M. and her first statements before the examining magistrate - she is indicted in a separate investigation for "criminal terrorist association" - nevertheless allowed these exchanges to be analyzed in a new light.

"Every time I had a question, he would tell me to shut up"

On her arrival in Syria in September 2014 "after a bad meeting", this Grenobloise marries Abdelnasser Benyoucef, an Algerian 16 years her senior, whom she presents this Friday as "an emir of external operations" within the organization. terrorist.

“When I was offered to marry him, he didn't tell me his duties.

Until he stopped and there he told me that he took care of the Hyper Cacher, of Sid Ahmed Ghlam [currently on trial for the assassination of Aurélie Châtelain in his car and for planning an attack against a church] and a failed attack in Belgium for Daesh ", assures the witness, heard by videoconference from the remand center where she was detained.

“At the beginning, I didn't know anything about what he was doing, I was confined to the house, I just had to do the housework, to eat,” she specifies in a clear voice.

Every time I had a question he would tell me to shut up.

"According to his account, the father of his two eldest children - who died in 2016 after being shot in the leg - only spoke to him about his role in the terrorist organization once," under the stroke of nervousness ”after a lively exchange with his“ superiors ”.

“He just told me he took care of recruiting Amedy Coulibaly but without further details.

I know he had contacts with people in France but he never told me which ones.

"

Meetings with Hayat Boumeddiene

The testimony of this woman, certainly fragmentary, also sheds light on another question that has remained unanswered until now: why the

attack

was claimed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqpa) while those of Montrouge and of the Hyper Cacher were it by the Islamic State group?

“Hayat Boumeddiene often said that her husband and the Kouachi brothers wanted to carry out this attack together to create cohesion between Daesh and Al Qaeda.

During her six years in Syria, Sonia M. has met on several occasions the widow of Amedy Coulibaly, accused in this case and currently at large.

If she claims to have moved away from the ideology of the Islamic State, she maintains that Hayat Boumeddiene was "thoroughly" and had the project "to stay in the area and return to another caliphate".

A second hearing scheduled for Friday was eagerly awaited to try to understand the chain of command: that of Peter Chérif, a high-ranking member of Aqpa and close to the Kouachi brothers.

But this jihad veteran arrested in Djibouti in December 2018 after seven years on the run in Yemen, heard in video-conference, was much less cooperative.

"I was forced to come and testify on a case that I have nothing to do (sic), I will not answer any questions […], I do not have an attitude to shock, I am not a criminal" , said this witness, himself indicted in this case but whose investigation was disjointed due to his late arrest.

After a short introduction in which he chanted in Arabic and French, held a proselyte speech, Peter Chérif walled off in silence, immersing himself during the 20 minutes that his hearing lasted in a little book appearing to be the Koran .

* Do what you have to do today but simple

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