Return to prison for the afro-trap star. Rapper MHD was sentenced to 12 years in prison this Saturday for the murder in 2018 of a young man in Paris as part of a settling of scores between gangs from rival cities.
Five of his co-defendants, who were tried alongside him for this murder, were also sentenced to sentences ranging from ten to eighteen years in prison, the maximum sentence having been imposed on a defendant who fled.
Three other men were acquitted, the court considering that one of them, Wissem E. was not on the scene at the time of the crime, and that for the two others, Saber B. and Moussa K. , she did not have sufficient evidence to convict them. The prosecution had requested eighteen years of criminal imprisonment against the rapper, whose real name is Mohamed Sylla.
He denies any involvement
When the verdict was announced, several women in the audience, relatives of the accused, burst into tears. MHD, for his part, remained stoic, before hugging a crying woman. He was then taken directly to the depot.
His lawyers declined to make a statement after the verdict. “Heavy hearing, but a judicial truth emerged despite the law of silence,” reacted Me Juliette Chapelle, lawyer for the family of the victim, Loïc K. Those convicted have 10 days to appeal.
Saturday morning, the rapper proclaimed his innocence one last time, in front of a packed house, before the court retired to deliberate. On the night of July 5 to 6, 2018, Loïc K., a young man aged 23, was deliberately knocked down by a Mercedes in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, then beaten by around ten men and lacerated with blows. knife. He died, lying in his blood, a few dozen minutes after his attackers left. The car was found the next day, set on fire, in a parking lot.
At the heart of the case, a settling of scores between young people from the city of Chaufourniers, nicknamed the red city, from which the accused come, and the neighboring city of Grange aux Belles, located in the 10th and 19th arrondissements.
An ascent stopped
This affair clearly slowed down the career of the artist, pioneer of “afro-trap”, a mixture of hip-hop and African music, revealed in 2015 thanks to a video posted on YouTube which went viral, the starting point of a meteoric rise.
From a pizza deliveryman, in a few months he became a recognized star not only in France but also abroad, where he was noticed by artists like Madonna and Drake.
A “success story” put on hold by his arrest and his placement in pre-trial detention – he will remain incarcerated for a year and a half before being released under judicial supervision.
Present at the crime scene?
In this case, the rapper, who despite his success continued to frequent the city of Chaufourniers between two tours, was implicated by several witnesses who affirmed that he was at the scene of the crime, which he has contested since the beginning.
Investigators also establish that the Mercedes set on fire belonged to him and one of the videos of the scene, taken from an apartment, shows an African man with dyed blond hair, wearing a Puma tracksuit. However, at that time, MHD had peroxided hair and was an ambassador for the sportswear brand.
On Friday, his lawyers, Elise Arfi and Antoine Vey, pleaded for acquittal for their client, as had the lawyers of the other accused before them. This case was illustrated, throughout the investigation and then the three weeks of trial, by the “law of silence” to which the accused, but also numerous witnesses, submitted. A large number of them, although summoned, did not appear in court. A law of silence dictated by the “fear of reprisals”, according to several people.
In their pleadings on Thursday and Friday, defense counsel attacked the way the investigations were carried out, criticizing a case “built on a rumor” and relying on “lame” elements and missing testimonies according to them of objectivity.