It is a file that has dragged on for nearly eight years. An eternity for Anne*, now 37 years outdated, who has been getting ready for this authorized assembly since 2018. “My shopper is impatiently ready for it to finish, it’s beginning to take a very long time,” confides to 20 Minutes Me Dominique-Jean Lardans, his lawyer. After a dismissal final December as a result of president’s state of well being, Saad Lamjarred, 40, is on trial from this Monday earlier than the Var Assize Court docket, in Draguignan. The Moroccan singer with billions of views on YouTube should reply for rape of this former barmaid committed near Saint-Tropez.
On August 26, 2018, Anne crossed paths with Saad Lamjarred within the restaurant of a nightclub. The younger girl doesn’t acknowledge the artist who insistently means that she go for a drink at his resort. The hit singer Lmaaala is, nonetheless, a pop star adored in his nation, Morocco, and well-known all through the Arab world. Expressive brown eyes, an enthralling smile, a finely trimmed beard… She finds him cute and finally ends up accepting his proposal. Each consumed numerous alcohol: toxicological analyzes carried out shortly after the details estimated their alcohol stage between 1.2 and 1.4 g/L for her and between 1.6 and 1.8 g/L for him. Leaving the celebration, they take their place aboard a VTC. The journey passed off with out the slightest incident.
“I had by no means seen her like that”
However as soon as they cross the edge of the bed room, their variations of the details diverge radically. Anne told the gendarmes who took his complaint having refused a kiss from Saad Lamjarred on the balcony. The singer then allegedly led her into the bed room earlier than pushing her “brutally” onto the mattress. In accordance with her account, he then undressed her and raped her by holding her wrists whereas she was “paratunized” and “unable to withstand him bodily”.
He maintains that the connection was consensual and assures that the younger girl took off her pants herself. The forty-year-old “proclaims his innocence” and “impatiently waits for justice to lastly be finished to him,” his attorneys, Me Christian Saint-Palais and Me Zoé Royaux, advised AFP final December, who didn’t reply to requests from 20 Minutes.
The accusation relies specifically on the testimony of a buddy of Anne, recipient of two textual content messages calling for assist: “come and get me, come rapidly,” the younger girl wrote in considered one of them. This buddy advised investigators that she discovered Anne “with a clean stare”. She was “lifeless, expressionless”. “I’ve by no means seen her like that. » The 2 specialists who examined the complainant detected “confirmed post-traumatic stress” in her.
Different comparable circumstances
For Me Dominique-Jean Lardans, the stakes of this trial are immense. “My shopper needs to see confirmed the weather of the grievance that she filed in opposition to Mr. Lamjarred who has already been talked about in any such scenario,” he explains. As a result of this isn’t the primary time that the singer has had issues with the legislation on account of his habits with girls.
In 2023, it was sentenced to six years in prison by the Paris Assize Court docket. Laura P., a younger girl met in a Parisian nightclub, accused him of raping and hitting her in 2016 in a room in a Parisian palace. He appealed the choice. This new trial, which was to be held in June in Créteil, was postponed indefinitely. As a result of since then, Laura P. and 5 different folks have been tried for having tried to extort three million euros from the artist. She was acquitted, in contrast to her co-defendants who obtained sentences starting from six months suspended to 2 years in jail.
Makes an attempt to cowl up the affair
He was additionally implicated in comparable circumstances, which he all the time contested, in 2015 at Moroccoand even in 2010 in america. On this case, the fees had been dropped after a settlement with the sufferer, the quantity of which was not disclosed. Me Dominique-Jean Lardans additionally assures that makes an attempt to cowl up the affair passed off throughout the investigation: “A buddy of the accused tried to supply a little bit cash in change for the silence of our shopper. »
The prosecution will lastly must take care of the temperate place of the general public prosecutor on this concern. Through the investigation, the prosecution first requested a dismissal of the case earlier than the Aix-en-Provence investigating chamber confirmed the referral to the assizes, recalling specifically that getting into a person’s bed room didn’t represent consent. “I do certainly worry that the Draguignan public prosecutor’s workplace remains to be in the identical choices however it’s the court docket which can decide,” underlines Me Lardans. Dealing with her, Saad Lamjarred will as soon as once more stake his profession and his freedom.
*The primary identify has been modified.
