Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery and Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema both skipped a trial examining whether they solicited an underage prostitute on Monday, with the two facing up to three years in prison if they are found guilty.
The trial had initially been set for June last year, but was adjourned for procedural reasons. It resumed on Monday, but with neither Ribery nor Benzema present. They are legally entitled to be represented by their lawyers instead, although their absence may make an unfavorable impression on the jury.
Lawyers for both players said their clients would not attend any of the trial, which ends tomorrow.
Photo: AFP
Self-described escort Zahia Dehar, now 21, contends that Ribery flew her to Munich as a birthday present to himself in 2009 when she was under 18. She says she told the players she was an adult. Dehar was also not present on Monday.
“We have a truncated trial. On one hand, the civil party [Dehar] who was, let’s say, at the time, the victim, who is no longer the victim and no longer considers herself one and therefore she is out of the trial,” Ribery’s lawyer, Carlo Alberto Brusa, said on Monday. “On the other hand, I remind you that the prosecutor has recommended that the case be dismissed.”
Ribery is alleged to have had sex with Dehar three times — including at the home of Kamel Ramdani, 39, one of several people on trial after a probe into a suspected prostitution network operating out of a nightclub called “Zaman Cafe” on Paris’ Champs-Elysees.
The establishment was run by Georges Farhat, 30, who employed his brother, Elie Farhat, 26. Both were at the trial on Monday.
“No one sold their charms at my establishment,” Georges Farhat said, adding that he “never saw” Zahia, who he only knew as “a friend of a barmaid who worked there.”
Although Ribery has admitted to having sex with Dehar, he claims he did not pay her and that he did not know that she was either a prostitute or a minor at the time.
Benzema has denied all the allegations.
He is alleged to have paid 500 euros (US$678) to have sex with Dehar in May 2008 on the night that he won the French player of the year award, when Dehar was 16.
“We are going to try to demonstrate that this is the truth and even prove it, and I hope that we are cleared,” said Benzema’s lawyer, Sylvain Cormier.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier