On the music side, it works. The music video for her latest song has already garnered more than 7.2 million views on YouTube. On the justice side, things get stuck. In a judgment of March 2, the investigative chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal ordered, in accordance with the requisitions of the general prosecutor’s office, the referral of Saad Lamjarred to the Assize Court for aggravated rape and aggravated violence. According to her, there are sufficient charges against the Moroccan singer of having committed, on October 26, 2016 in Paris, this crime and this misdemeanor – drunk and under the influence of coke – on Laura P., then aged 21 years. .
For the 35-year-old star, who has always denied the facts, it’s a hell of a setback. The annulment in April of a similar judgment by the Court of Cassation for procedural reasons will only have been a simple suspension. In 2019, the first judge had, in the absence of the suspect’s DNA elsewhere than on his victim’s panties, even reclassified the facts as aggravated sexual assault, falling under the criminal court. This time he faces 20 years in prison.
In this affair, where a stranger, a little blue flower, accuses a celebrity and great seducer, it is the mystery of room 714. With two certainties. Laura P. and Saad Lamjarred, who had met the day before in a Parisian nightclub, met there the night of October 25 to 26, 2016. Their languid tête-à-tête at the Marriott hotel ended when the young woman fled the room frightened and bearing traces of beatings.
The singer’s “evolving” statements
What happened ? The court of appeal points to “evolving” declarations of the singer who will eventually relate that they kissed, that she helped him to undress, deducing then that she wanted to have sex. According to him, she abruptly changed her behavior, pushing him away and scratching his neck. The artist says he hit her in the face out of fear.
The complainant’s statements are qualified as “constant”. In the eyes of the court, Laura P. has always claimed to have “refused to go further” than a kiss. His decision would have triggered the singer’s violence and his forced penetrations “corroborated by the gynecological examination”. And there are these three hotel employees describing the young woman with the torn T-shirt, crying, panicked and pursued by the star who would have released “no proof” (no proof) with a smirk.
Pleading these same arguments at the hearing of February 2, Me Jean-Marc Descoubes, lawyer of Laura P., also assured that Saad Lamjarred sought – in vain – to compensate the victim with a bracelet and 150 euros. He also cited the frustration intolerance noted by an expert psychiatrist at the respondent, already involved in 2010 in a rape case in the United States which ended in a transaction.
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The singer’s lawyers, for their part, have notably asserted that it is not established that Laura P. has previously and clearly manifested her lack of consent for acts of a sexual nature. Supporting the absence of traumatic injuries in connection with sexual violence, Jean-Marc Fédida and Thierry Herzog had pleaded for the dismissal. They can again appeal in cassation.
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