Blackmail at the Valbuena sextape: the Court of Cassation will examine the case in plenary assembly

Paris (AFP)

The police "ploy" in the investigation into the blackmail of Mathieu Valbuena sextape, in which Karim Benzema is indicted, was it "disloyal"? The Court of Cassation returned the case Wednesday plenary session, its most solemn training.

The Criminal Chamber of the Court ordered "the referral of the case to the plenary of the Court of Cassation", indicates the judgment of the highest court of justice, which AFP obtained a copy.

In July 2017, she had confirmed the defense by advocating the cancellation of a part of the procedure.

But the Paris Court of Appeal resisted him by validating the investigation in November 2018, paving the way for a trial. It rejected the Real Madrid striker's request for a declaration of invalidity, which denounced the undercover actions of a policeman who had introduced himself as an intermediary between Valbuena and those suspected of being the singers.

The defense of Benzema, but also those of Younes Houass and Karim Zenati, two others indicted in this case, then filed an appeal in cassation, examined on May 9.

At that hearing, the Advocate-General had argued that Mr Houass's appeal should be declared inadmissible and that the two others should be referred to the Court of Justice in plenary session or, failing that, that their appeals be dismissed.

Patrice Spinosi, lawyer of MM. Benzema and Zenati, he, deplored the fact that "we remake (sse) the match" with "arguments already heard". For him, a rejection of the appeals was "not conceivable".

For Frédéric Thiriez, Mathieu Valbuena's lawyer, on the other hand, there is "nothing reprehensible in the methods used by the policeman".

This case, in which six people are indicted, has cost its international career to Benzema, never remembered in Blue since November 2015, as in Valbuena, which is now evolving in Turkey.

In addition to the star striker Real Madrid, five other people are implicated, including former international Djibril Cisse. The men considered as the brains of blackmail, Mustapha Zouaoui and Axel Angot, two men gravitating in the middle of the football, are suspected to have stolen Mathieu Valbuena's intimate video and to have tried to profit from it.

They are accused of having tried to approach Valbuena first through Djibril Cisse, then by Younes Houass - who exchanged with "Lukas", the police officer acting under cover - and finally via Benzema by contacting his childhood friend Karim Zenati, also indicted.

? 2019 AFP