French rapper MHD was on Saturday sentenced to 12 years in prison for the 2018 murder of a young man in Paris who was rammed with a vehicle before being set upon by a mob and stabbed.
Five of his fellow defendants were also jailed over the killing, receiving prison terms of between 10 and 18 years, over what prosecutors said was a fight between rival gangs. Three other men were acquitted.
The pioneer of afro-trap — a mix of hip-hop and African traditions — MHD rose to fame after becoming a viral sensation in 2015.
Photo: AFP
The 29-year-old, whose real name is Mohamed Sylla, was charged with homicide in January 2019 and imprisoned. He was released after a year and a half in custody as investigations continued, and released a new album.
The convicted — who all pleaded not guilty — have 10 days to appeal.
The prosecutor had asked for an 18-year prison sentence for the rapper, acquittals for two of the accused and jail sentences of 13 to 20 years for the others.
On the night of July 5, 2018, 23-year-old Loic K was rammed by a black Mercedes and then beaten up and stabbed by about a dozen people in a gritty part of the capital’s 10th arrondissement.
Although the rapper denied having been at the scene, a local resident filmed the incident from his window, and the Mercedes was quickly identified as belonging to MHD.
Other witnesses identified him by his haircut or a sweatshirt by Puma — for which he was a brand ambassador — according to investigative reports seen by Agence France-Presse.
The vehicle was found abandoned and burned out in a parking lot a day after the killing.
“A judicial truth emerged despite the law of silence,” said Juliette Chapelle, lawyer for the victim’s family.
The performer is best known for Afro Trap Part 3 (Champions League), a song in praise of the Paris Saint-Germain soccer club.
He had made waves abroad, drawing admiration from global stars such as Drake and Madonna.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS