Paris (AFP)

Decisive hearing Monday in the case of the blackmail to the sextape of Mathieu Valbuena involving the Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema: the Court of Cassation meets in plenary to study the validity of the investigation, challenged by the star Madrid.

It's been four years since the two footballers clashed in the courts. The Real star is suspected of having put pressure on Mathieu Valbuena to force him to pay a ransom so as to avoid being made public a sextape of the latter, who now evolves in the Greek club Olympiakos.

Benzema claims to have simply wanted to help his teammate in Blue by warning him of the existence of the video, whose content has never been revealed. But for investigators, he participated in a blackmail operation with his childhood friend Karim Zenati, also indicted.

The purpose of Monday's hearing will be to examine the actions of a police officer, Yann Bessette, who played the role of intermediary between Valbuena and the presumed master-singers for the purposes of the investigation.

"The fact is not simply that there is a police officer who pretended to be someone else, it is that he has regularly raised people," explained to AFP Patrice Spinosi , Karim Benzema's lawyer.

For the defense, Yann Bessette has repeatedly relaunched his interlocutors, including when they gave no news for several weeks. He is also the first to mention the payment of money, prompting people to commit an offense.

"We can not say that the police have provoked the offense," contests on his side the lawyer Mathieu Valbuena, Me Frederic Thiriez.

"The trick is absolutely not prohibited or so we must prohibit spinning, stealing, interception ... It is quite normal for the police to maintain contact," said the lawyer.

"If we come to prohibit a policeman acting as an intermediary to locate and identify the perpetrators, where are we going?" Thiriez worried.

- Perspective of a trial -

In July 2017, the Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation had considered the actions of the police officer as unfair, giving reason to Benzema, before the Paris Court of Appeal denied this decision a year ago. The plenary assembly of the Court of Cassation must therefore decide and provide a definitive answer.

If she decides to invalidate the actions involving the undercover police officer, then "there is no choice but to take out Benzema" from the file, assures Me Spinosi.

On the other hand, if the Court validates the investigation in its entirety, the prospect of a trial for Karim Benzema and the five others indicted will materialize a little more.

Besides Benzema and Zenati, Moustapha Zouaoui and Axel Angot are also concerned. These two men, gravitating in the middle of Marseilles foot, are suspected of having stolen the video and to have sought to profit from it.

To contact Valbuena, they first went through the former player Djibril Cisse, then through an intermediary, Younes Houass, the only one to have been in contact with the policeman under cover, and finally Benzema, thanks to his friend Karim Zenati. All were indicted.

In November 2015, the scandal had shaken the selection led by Didier Deschamps, just months away from the Euro-2016 held in France. Since then, neither Mathieu Valbuena, nor Karim Benzema, at the time executives of the team of France, were never recalled in Blue.

"The adventure in Blue is over" for Karim Benzema again last Saturday recalled the President of the French Football Federation (FFF) Noël Le Graët, despite the high performance of the striker with his club.

"Know that it is me and I alone that would put an end to my international career," he replied on Twitter the Real striker, who has another appointment with France Tuesday, this time on pitches: the shock of the Champions League against Paris SG.

© 2019 AFP