Rape established, but Saad Lamjarred is not a “sexual predator”, according to the prosecution. Seven years of imprisonment and five years of prohibition of the French territory were required, this Thursday, before the Court of Assizes of Paris, against the Moroccan star singer.
Sitting at the front of a small room filled with onlookers and fans, Saad Lamjarred, 37, shows no reaction to the announcement of the requested sentence. On the benches of the civil parties, Laura P. seems overwhelmed.
Saad Lamjarred challenges any penetration
This evening of October 2016, there is on one side “a young woman of 20”, “in the making”, and on the other, “a 31-year-old man already well established in existence”, begins Advocate General Jean-Christophe Muller.
Laura P. and the singer, ultra-popular in the Arab world, whom she had not heard of before, “pleased” when they met in a posh nightclub in the capital. “Plu” again during a first “after”, and, when she follows him to his hotel, concedes the accusation. Laura P. herself admitted that she was considering a “flirt”.
According to the version that the young woman had told in tears and trembling on the stand, Saad Lamjarred had suddenly become violent as they kissed, before raping and hitting her. Saad Lamjarred strongly denies any sexual penetration, and just admits having, by “reflex”, “brutally pushed the face” of Laura P. who would have suddenly “scratched” him while they were undressing.
“When you are in a boy’s room at 8:30 in the morning, you know that he wants to go further, thunders the singer’s lawyer, Jean-Marc Fedida, in his argument. It’s objective, even for a nun. If she changed her mind, “it was her right.” And, “perhaps the alcohol, the cocaine and the fact that she rejects it caused this unacceptable reflex in Saad Lamjarred”, he continues.
But “Saad Lamjarred has always said that he had not penetrated” Laura P. and there is “nothing, nothing in the file”, insists his second lawyer, Thierry Herzog.
A victim of “the world of the night”
Saad Lamjarred’s lawyers devoted a large part of their pleadings to dissecting the morals of Laura P., “someone from the world of the night, who knows the codes and knows how to stage himself on social networks”, insists Master Fedida.
In the morning, they had projected 250 pages of screenshots of her Instagram account – Laura P. in a bathing suit at the beach, Laura P. in front of a Greek salad or feeding an elephant – as well as a photo of her in her underwear, to recall her past as a “model”. As if to say, “didn’t she look for it a bit,” the Advocate General gritted in his indictment.
“Mr. Lamjarred was guilty of acts of rape”, he had assured, referring to the blows observed on Laura’s body, the “traces” inside the vagina which “can be related to a recent sexual intercourse, without being specific” according to the expertise, and the “constant, since the beginning” statements of Laura P. He also recalled the testimonies of the hotel employees who took charge of the young woman “terrorized” at her escape from the room.
The accused gives different versions
To determine the sentence, it is necessary “to know if Saad Lamjarred is a sexual predator, or someone who seizes the opportunities that arise”, then advanced the Advocate General, leaning more towards the second option.
Laura P.’s advice had highlighted the “three different versions” of the evening given by Saad Lamjarred, “obviously a liar”, according to lawyer Jean-Marc Descoubès.
The singer is targeted by extremely similar charges in New York, Casablanca and Saint-Tropez, had, for his part, recalled the lawyer Joël Assouad. This last case, for which he will be tried for rape before the assizes of the Var, dates back to 2018, had noted the council. “He could have said to himself” stop, danger “after the Paris affair, but no, he continues, it is pathological”, he launches.
At the hearing, Saad Lamjarred, the same navy sweater and white shirt since the opening of the trial on Monday, constantly refused to answer questions about these other charges. The verdict will be given on Friday.