French police questioned soccer internationals Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema yesterday as part of an investigation into an alleged under-age prostitution ring, a legal source said.
The players were detained at the request of an investigating magistrate probing allegations that a Champs Elysees nightclub provided clients access to minors working as call girls, the source close to the inquiry said.
One of the young women who is alleged to have met clients at the club had already testified to investigators earlier in the year that she had relations with the two players when she was still under-age.
PHOTO: AFP
If they are charged and convicted of soliciting and paying for sex with a minor, the pair face three years in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros (US$58,000), but only if it is proved they knew she was under-age.
Ribery arrived at the headquarters of the Paris vice squad with an acquaintance but refused to answer questions from reporters.
Ribery was a member of France’s ill-fated squad at the recent World Cup in South Africa. Benzema missed out on this year’s French team, despite playing in much of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
Ribery has previously confirmed to police that he had sex with the young woman, but insists he did not know she was a minor. Benzema has not publicly addressed the allegations.
The woman, Zahia Dehar, is now 18. She gave an interview to Paris Match after the scandal erupted in which she described selling sexual encounters to Ribery and Benzema while she was under-age, and with a third French player, Sidney Govou, when she was an adult.
Dehar has also said the players did not know she was a minor. In France the general age of consent is 15, but in the case of prostitution a young person remains a minor until he or she is 18.
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