Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema goes on trial in France on Wednesday accused of complicity in the attempted blackmail of former international teammate Mathieu Valbuena in a case known as the “sex tape affair”.
Benzema, 33, stands accused of helping a group of alleged blackmailers to approach Valbuena in an attempt to extort money. Four other men are also on trial.
The case
cost both Benzema and 37-year-old Valbuena their place in the French national
team, although Benzema was restored to the lineup for this year’s European
championship.
The case
centres on the role that Benzema is suspected of playing in the murky affair
six years ago, which started when Valbuena handed his smartphone to Axel Angot,
a man connected to footballing circles in the southern port city of Marseille,
with the request to transfer its contents to a new device.
Angot, now
on trial for breach of trust, came across sexually explicit footage on the
phone involving Valbuena.
Prosecutors
say he then explored ways — together with a friend, Mustapha Zouaoui — to
approach Valbuena and threaten publication of the footage unless he paid them.
Valbuena
received several calls in June 2015 threatening exposure of the footage, which
he reported to the police.
The
blackmailers then went to former French international Djibril Cisse, who
refused to act as their messenger, instead of warning Valbuena of what was
brewing.
Cisse, who
played for Premier League club Liverpool during his career, was initially charged
in the case, but later cleared.
What
followed is an imbroglio involving several shadowy middlemen, one of whom
turned out to be an undercover agent called “Luka” placed by police who were
trying to get proof before taking action against the protagonists.
Eventually,
the presumed blackmailers went to one of Benzema’s old friends, Karim Zenati,
who prosecutors say enlisted Benzema’s help to reach Valbuena.
On Oct 6, 2015, Benzema went to see Valbuena in his room at the French national
team’s training centre at Clairefontaine, west of Paris.
He told his
teammate that he could introduce him to a “trustworthy person” to help him
“manage” the possible publication of a compromising video.
In what
Benzema later claimed was an attempt to help his teammate out of a difficult
situation, he told him: “Be careful ‘Math’, these are very, very heavy
criminals.”
Benzema then
called his childhood friend Karim Zenati, who was by then acting as an
intermediary for the alleged blackmailers, and told him in a conversation
wiretapped by police: “He’s not taking us seriously.”
Prosecutors
say that the word “us” proves that Benzema saw himself as part of the blackmail
scheme.
Valbuena
said later that the conversation left him with the feeling that he was “being
played for a fool”.
“If he
doesn’t want us to handle this for him, he’ll have to deal with the piranhas,”
Zenati said, claiming later that all he wanted to do was alert Valbuena to the
existence of the video.
Benzema
replied that “they will piss on him”, and in a subsequent conversation referred
to Valbuena with a derogatory term for a homosexual, which he said later was
meant “in a friendly way”.
The maximum
sentence for complicity in attempted blackmail is five years in prison and a
fine of 70,000 euros ($81,000).
Benzema has
argued that the undercover police officer used dishonest methods to draw him
into the affair.
It was
unclear on Monday whether the striker, who is scheduled to play for Real Madrid
against Shakhtar Donetsk in a Champions League match in Ukraine on Tuesday,
will attend the trial. His lawyers did not respond to AFP’s requests for
clarification.
Valbuena,
who now plays for Greek club Olympiakos, will be present, his lawyer said.
The sex tape
case caused Benzema to be exiled from France’s national football team for years
— a decision he called ‘racist’ — but the striker returned to “Les Bleus” this
year in time for the European championship.
France coach
Didier Deschamps said this month that “he’s no longer the same person, he’s matured”.
Benzema has
scored a total of 243 goals for Real and remains a key part of their side.
Source: AP
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