Chérif Kouachi

Chérif Kouachi (undated passport photo)

Chérif Kouachi (born November 29, 1982 in Paris , † January 9, 2015 in Dammartin-en-Goële ) was a French Islamist terrorist who, together with his older brother Saïd Kouachi, attacked the editorial team of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7th 2015 that killed twelve people and injured more than ten others.

youth

Chérif Kouachi was born in Paris in the 10th arrondissement . The parents came from Constantine in Algeria . He had two brothers, a sister and a half-sister. In 1990 his father died of cancer and the mother had to look after her children alone. When the school grades of the older children got worse and worse and they looked increasingly neglected, the Paris Youth Welfare Office sent the brothers Chérif and Saïd to a children's home in Treignac in the Corrèze department , where they were accepted in October 1994. The mother had been ill for a long time and was found dead in January 1995. Chérif was considered a lovable and polite boy; In 1995 he was elected class representative. In his school days he tried to become a professional soccer player or coach. He broke off training as an electrical engineer. Instead, Chérif Kouachi later obtained a diploma as a fitness instructor.

Chérif and Saïd left the home in 2000. In 2001 the brothers were placed in a foster home in Paris. The foster father was a French converted to Islam . As young men, Saïd and Chérif lived off odd jobs. Chérif worked as a pizza delivery boy and hoped for opportunities to achieve success with rap music. They initially lived with an uncle who soon threw them out. At times the brothers lived in cheap hotels and shelters for the homeless.

Radicalization and attack

The Buttes Chaumont Cell

Between 2002 and 2003, Chérif began to take an interest in Islam and with his brother he regularly visited the Adda'wa mosque near the Stalingrad metro station . There they made the acquaintance of the Salafist preacher and self-proclaimed “emir” of the so-called Buttes-Chaumont cell ( “la filière des Buttes-Chaumont” ), the then 27-year-old Farid Benyettou. Benyettou, of Algerian descent, was influenced and trained by his brother-in-law, Youcef Zemmouri, an Islamist who was expelled from France in 2004 and his friend, Mohamed Karimi, who belonged to a Paris cell of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Struggle (GSPC) .

Benyettou gave Koran courses and tried to find followers for jihad , especially for the armed struggle against Americans in Iraq. He taught them that suicide bombings were a legitimate means of jihad in the eyes of Islam. In May 2004, pictures of the torture in Abu Ghraib were published. Under the influence of Benyattou, the group was further radicalized. Chérif Kouachi stated in a later interrogation by French security forces that Benyettou's statements were very true and had a great influence on him.

After several members of the group had already gone to Iraq and were killed or seriously injured there, Chérif Kouachi intended in January 2005 to travel to Iraq via Syria himself as a fighter. Before he could realize that, however, he and another member of the cell were arrested at the airport in France. The security forces then removed the entire Buttes Chaumont cell, including Benyettou.

Pretrial detention and trial

Chérif Kouachi was held in custody in Fleury-Mérogis Prison from late January to October 2006, another crucial turning point in his life. The conditions in this prison are viewed by critics as a possible breeding ground for radical Islamism. Chérif Kouachi was able to join a group of Salafists there that Djamel Beghal (alias Abou Hamza ), al-Qaida recruiter and loyal follower of Osama bin Laden , had rallied .

Beghal (born December 2, 1965 in Bordj Bou Areridj, Algeria), sentenced to ten years in prison in March 2005 for a planned attack on the US embassy in Paris, was imprisoned until May 2009. His French citizenship was revoked and he was placed under house arrest in Murat . Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem , one of the main people responsible for the series of attacks in France in 1995 , was sentenced to ten years in prison again in May 2010 for planning the liberation .

In March 2008 the trial of the members of the Buttes-Chamont cell was opened. A total of seven members, including Benyettou, were charged with forming a terrorist group in preparation for terrorist attacks. Chérif Kouachi was sentenced to three years in prison. He did not have to go back to prison, however, as half of the sentence was suspended and pre-trial detention was credited.

In prison, Chérif Kouachi first met the later assassin Amedy Coulibaly . Even after their imprisonment, the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly maintained contact with Beghal and traveled several times with their wives to Murat to see Beghal, who was under house arrest. After his release from prison, Chérif Kouachi lived on the streets for a while until a school friend from Treignac took him in. He met a kindergarten teacher of Moroccan origin, whom he married in 2008. She came from a religious family and later gave up her job because she did not want to do without the full veil in kindergarten. Chérif Kouachi started working as a fish seller in a supermarket in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine , where he worked until 2010. He later made a living from selling counterfeit products such as perfumes and clothing.

In 2010, through his association with Beghal, Chérif Kouachi was suspected of having been involved in the planned liberation of Smaït Ali Belkacem. However, the preliminary investigation was closed in 2013. Telephone surveillance also ended that same year. Both Kouachi brothers were still on the American no-fly list, on the French terror watch list TIDE and in the Schengen information system.

attack

From July to August 2011, Chérif Kouachi traveled with his brother to Yemen via Oman. There the brothers took part in training in an al-Qaeda camp in Yemen . On January 7, 2015, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi stormed the editorial team of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and shot twelve people. Two days later, both brothers were arrested in a printing works in Dammartin-en-Goële and killed in a gun battle with the police. Chérif Kouachi was buried anonymously in Gennevilliers .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Telegraph January 10, 2015: Paris shootings: Police stopped watching Said and Cherif Kouachi
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Süddeutsche Zeitung: Verloren , weekend edition of January 17, 2015
3. ↑ ^{a b} Holger Dambeck, Georg Diez, Björn Hengst, Julia Amalia Heyer, Mathieu von Rohr, Simone Salden, Samiha Shafy, Holger Stark, Petra Truckendanner and Antje Windmann: " Those were good children" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 2015, p. 76–84 ( online - January 17, 2015 , here p. 78).
4. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung January 17, 2015: Golden, cute and always very polite / Art. + Series of images
5. ↑ Raniah Salloum: Suspects Chérif and Saïd Kouachi: Little crooks from the province , Spiegel Online from January 8, 2015.
6. ^ Ouest-France January 8, 2015: Assassination à Charlie Hebdo. L'adolescence en Corrèze des deux suspects
7. ↑ L'Obs January 13, 2015: “Saïd était le 'pilier'. Le plus déconneur, c'était Chérif "
8. ↑ Der Spiegel career of the attackers in Paris: "They were good children" from January 16, 2015
9. ↑ ^{a b c} The Kouachi Brothers , Die Zeit Online, January 9, 2015.
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Daniel-Dylan Böhmer, Gesche Wüpper: From would-be rapper to religious fanatic. In: The world . January 8, 2015, accessed January 10, 2015 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b} Nadia Pantel: How petty criminals became fanatical murderers. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung online. January 9, 2015, accessed January 10, 2015 . 
12. ↑ ^{a b} Le Figaro January 21, 2015: Charlie Hebdo: l'itinéraire des frères Kouachi
13. ↑ ^{a b} Rheinische Post January 12, 2015: Farid Benyettou. The seducer of the Kouachi brothers is off duty today
14. ↑ Le Parisien January 12, 2015: L'ex-émir des frères Kouachi infirmier à la Pitié-Salpêtrière, la direction s'explique
15. ↑ Le Figaro January 20, 2015: La sanglante dérive de la bande islamiste des Buttes-Chaumont
16. ↑ Holger Dambeck, Georg Diez, Björn Hengst, Julia Amalia Heyer, Mathieu von Rohr, Simone Salden, Samiha Shafy, Holger Stark, Petra Truckendanner and Antje Windmann: " Those were good children" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 2015, p. 76-84 ( Online - Jan. 17, 2015 ).
17. ↑ "The prisoners leave the prisons with even more radical ideas than those for which they were convicted" Examining magistrate Marc Trévidic, head of the anti-terrorist unit in the Paris Criminal Court in faz.net January 13, 2015: Prisons in France. Breeding grounds of Islamism
18. ↑ Cage / UK: Case File: Djamel Beghal ( Memento from February 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
19. ^ Ouest France January 9, 2015: Charlie Hebdo. Djamel Beghal never toute implication in les attentats
20. ^ The Guardian January 11, 2015: Mentor of Charlie Hebdo gunmen has been UK-based
21. ↑ Holger Dambeck, Georg Diez, Björn Hengst, Julia Amalia Heyer, Mathieu von Rohr, Simone Salden, Samiha Shafy, Holger Stark, Petra Truckendanner and Antje Windmann: " Those were good children" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 2015, p. 76–84 ( online - January 17, 2015 , see graphic on p. 80: Network of Terror).
22. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung January 12, 2015: Terror in France. The idols of the assassins
23. ↑ Le Monde March 26, 2008: Le jihad irakien des jeunes du 19e
24. ↑ Le Figaro March 20, 2008: Filières irakiennes: 7 jeunes djihadistes jugés à Paris
25. ↑ The Kouachi brothers were on the German terror list , Welt Online from January 10, 2015.
26. ^ The terrorist connections of the Kouachi brothers , Süddeutsche Zeitung of January 14, 2015.
27. ↑ Paris assassin Cherif Kouachi buried in kleinezeitung.at, January 18, 2015