Predatory extortion
Abou Chaker process on the home stretch: Bushido’s credibility will be important
Anis Ferchichi, also known as Bushido, on the way to the courtroom in the summer of 2022. The trial against Arafat Abou-Chaker has been running since August 2020 and there have now been 95 days of trial.
© Monika Skolimowska/dpa
After three and a half years, the verdict in the trial of Arafat Abou Chaker and three of his brothers is expected at the beginning of February. The seven defense lawyers plead for acquittal on all essential points – for them, key witness Bushido is a cunning liar and manipulator
Attorney Hansgeorg Birkhoff has placed a water bottle in front of him in the courtroom. Every now and then, during his plea, he opens the green lid and takes a sip. The thing about the audio recording is very clear to him: “It makes the prosecution collapse like a house of cards.” The public prosecutor’s office “based everything on Mr. Ferchichi’s rhetorical strength. But what matters is not the captivating narrative, but the substance.” And that’s where Birkhoff sees the core problem with the taking of evidence and with Anis Ferchichi alias Bushido.
Arafat Abou-Chaker’s defense attorney submitted the audio file to the court as evidence after the star had revealed its existence and contents. The secret recording documents a meeting on January 18, 2018, from which the main allegations in this case arise: attempted serious predatory extortion, deprivation of liberty, and grievous bodily harm. The recording completely contradicts Bushido’s portrayal.
Audio file does not support Bushido’s statement
Before the recording appeared to the police and court, the rapper described movingly and sometimes in tears how Arafat locked him up in the office with his brothers that day, hit him in the face with a water bottle, threw a chair at him, insulted his deceased parents and so on demanded millions from him. “You won’t get out of here alive,” Bushido quoted Arafat’s brother Yasser right at the beginning of the meeting. Further quotes, the violent scenes described and Yasser’s sentence right at the beginning cannot be heard on the recording. “Instead you hear a greeting,” says Birkhoff, then “can you make me a coffee too, please.” “Mr. Ferchichi is going to the toilet,” and then the secretary will be sent away.
What other choice did Bushido and his lawyer have than declare this audio file to be a fake? Birkhoff considers all the evidence that they eloquently cited to be smokescreens, false claims, “patterns without value.” The senior public prosecutor nevertheless whispered in her plea: “We don’t know what was cut, out or in.” She is demanding four years and four months in prison for Arafat Abou-Chaker. An expert on behalf of the court searched intensively for evidence of manipulation and found none. None. Lawyer Birkhoff says: “Is it a fake? Absolutely not.”
Defense wants to undermine Bushido’s credibility
During their pleas on Friday, the seven defense attorneys set out to undermine the credibility of key witness Bushido. This was new in this massiveness in a process whose course and resonance was clearly dominated by Bushido’s narrative: the story of the brutal clan boss Arafat Abou-Chaker, who tormented the rapper for years and wanted to cash in even after a business separation. Bushido presented his victim story on 28 days of trial, his wife Anna-Maria testified on five days, and even the Amazon documentary series “Bushido’s Truth” was shown as evidence in the courtroom.
On Friday, terms like “manipulator”, “master of self-dramatization”, a “mercilessly calculating man”, “Mephistopheles” – and what is meant by Bushido – are used. His wife Anna-Maria Ferchichi was “always the agitator” in the dispute with Arafat, who very specifically looked after her interests. Long-time friends and companions of the rapper who testified as witnesses were used by Bushido in intensive relationships as long as they were useful to him. In addition to Bushido, there are only hearsay witnesses for the public prosecutor’s main allegations – Bushido’s wife, his civil lawyer, his tax advisor, his truth. He did not release other people who knew from their duty of confidentiality, for example three lawyers who could have clarified the unclear management contracts with Abou-Chaker.
Police officers, certainly not friends of Arafat Abou-Chaker, denied that he had pushed her off a staircase, as Bushido had described in a dramatic way. A scene with a nanny who was employed as an accountant was simply made up – “Mr. Ferchichi told us a fairy tale,” says one of the lawyers. The personal protection for Bushido and his family is part of the production of how bad Arafat Abou-Chaker is, said lawyer Michael Martens: bodyguards with balaclavas at court hearings, while Bushido’s children are shown unpixelated in documentaries.
“I asked Mr. Ferchichi few questions because of his personality,” said Birkhoff, “because it would have been fruitless.” Ferchichi is a good entertainer, “what he says comes across well. But does that mean it’s true?” The lawyer’s strategy in the proceedings was apparently to let Bushido talk and talk and talk – even if that required discipline from his own client.
Abou Chaker trial: verdict on February 5th
After a break, the main defendant Arafat Abou-Chaker is missing from the courtroom. The judge asks, Birkhoff jokes: “I didn’t advise him to run away.” Everyone laughs and the door opens. Arafat Abou-Chaker appears with a plastic bag full of 0.5 liter water bottles. “Sorry, I’m the water fetcher,” he says.
For Bushido, Birkhoff had a rather hidden comparison ready by referring to an older media report about “literary quackery”. It was about the case of Binjamin Wilkomirski, pseudonym of the author of an impressive Jewish autobiography of persecution that was enthusiastically received by critics. At the end of the 1990s it turned out to be clearly fake, which sparked debates about whether he was a media-hungry manic and manipulator and liar or whether he himself believed in his pseudo-memories. The author stuck to his presentation.
The verdict in the trial is expected to be pronounced on February 5th.