After six years in the Yemeni deserts, one at the women's prison in Fleury-Mérogis (Essonne), Soulef A. regains freedom in a France under the Covid-19 pandemic. Indicted for "criminal terrorist criminal association" and "terrorist financing" since January 3, 2019, this 35-year-old Frenchwoman is the religious wife of Peter Cherif, jihad figure and intimate of the Kouachi brothers, the authors of the Charlie Hebdo killings. After a long exile with Al-Qaeda in Yemen (AQPA), the couple had been intercepted with their two children in Djibouti in winter 2018, under false identities, then expelled to France.
According to a judicial source, the Paris Court of Appeal on Wednesday ordered the release of Soulef A. for medical reasons, against the advice of the Paris prosecutor's office. The young suspected jihadist, suffering from a serious illness, was therefore released this Thursday from the Fleury-Mérogis remand center and placed under judicial supervision in a place kept confidential, with an obligation to report weekly to the police station. This is one of the first jihadist releases since the start of the health crisis, while Peter Cherif, himself, remains incarcerated in Bois-d'Arcy.
The court of appeal had been seized by the lawyers of Soulef A., Mes Rachid Madid and Moad Nefati, who intended to challenge the order of the investigating judge who had initially refused the release of their client in February. Contacted, My Rachid Madid and Moad Nefati did not wish to speak.
Hospitalized repeatedly
From a judicial source, the judgment of the investigating chamber does not evoke the context of the coronavirus epidemic to justify the release of Soulef A. It is however indicated that his medical situation and his serious pathology require follow-up outside prison. Since her imprisonment in Fleury-Mérogis, the young woman has been hospitalized on several occasions and contradictory medical expert opinions on the compatibility of a detention have been commissioned. “It is certain that everything is integrated into the thinking of the magistrates who decide on the releases, including the current health situation. It is an element of fact, not a legal element, which is assessed on a case-by-case basis, ”observes an expert in the field.
The counsel of Soulef A., them, justified their request for release by the state of health of their client but also the lack of progress of the investigations concerning her, this one having been questioned only twice by the examining magistrate in one year. The investigation, in fact, focuses mainly on the journey of her husband, Peter Cherif. Born in Marseille, Soulef A. had discreetly joined her companion in Yemen in the fall of 2012, while Cherif had come to evade her conviction in the affair of the Buttes-Chaumont sector. A Parisian jihadist cell to which the perpetrators of the Charlie-Hebdo attack also belonged.
Requests for release in terrorism cases are rare
The couple then spent six years with Al-Qaeda in Yemen where Peter Cherif is suspected of having occupied an important position in the jihadist organization chart, in particular of French jailer of hostages. According to his statements in police custody, he also met one of the Kouachi brothers on the spot before the killings at the headquarters of the satirical newspaper. Both had finally left Yemen in 2019 and moved to Djibouti in the hope of joining the Maghreb.
Requests for release in terrorism cases are rare. Since the Covid-19 epidemic, two suspects indicted in the Strasbourg bombing case were released on March 19 under judicial supervision.
