The prosecution had requested a fine of 10,000 euros. Prosecuted for defamation after posting a tweet showing Karim Benzema alongside jihadists, Damien Rieu was acquitted this Tuesday by the Lyon criminal court. A decision which the far-right activist immediately welcomed.
“I have just won my case against Benzema and his Islamist compromises,” the person immediately posted on Golden Ball”.
In 2020, Damien Rieu, whose real name is Damien Lefèvre, published a photomontage, in which we saw the footballer pointing a finger to the sky next to fighters, accompanied by the following comment: “I think Benzema wants to send us a message”.
” An aberration “
The Lyon criminal court considered that this message, even defamatory in terms, could benefit from good faith, which leads to acquittal in press matters.
“Granting good faith to Damien Rieu is an aberration,” reacted the player’s lawyer, Sylvain Cormier, as he left the courthouse. We have the right to make fun of Karim Benzema, (…) to have an opinion different from his, but to associate him with a terrorist, we don’t have the right. »
Insinuating a proximity between the footballer and jihadists “constitutes an insult to those who fight against Islamist terrorism, and to those who have suffered from it in their flesh”, recalled the prosecutor, Alain Grellet, during the hearing last June.
But for Pierre-Vincent Lamber, Damien Rieu’s lawyer, the “factual basis” of the court’s decision is to be found on the side of… Karim Benzema. The attacker himself had placed a “like” on Twitter in favor of a sportsman from Dagestan, who had described cartoonists as “enemies of Islam”, he said as he left the court.