Versailles (AFP)

French football star Karim Benzema, prosecuted for "complicity in attempted blackmail" in the case of the "sextape" of his former teammate Mathieu Valbuena, will be tried from October 20 to 22 before the court in Versailles, announced on Tuesday. prosecutor's office at AFP.

The 33-year-old striker, who has not been called up for the French team since October 2015 but continues to make Real Madrid happy, faces up to five years in prison and a 75,000 euros fine in this case, where four other men are being prosecuted for attempted blackmail.

One of them is also being prosecuted for breach of trust.

Karim Benzema is accused of having incited Mathieu Valbuena, 36 and currently under contract with the Greek club Olympiakos, to pay blackmailers who threatened to unveil an intimate video featuring him.

The file is based in particular on a discussion in October 2015 between the two men at Clairefontaine, the training center of the French football team, during which Karim Benzema allegedly explained that he could "present someone you trust" to Mathieu Valbuena, according to the hearing of the latter, to help him "manage" the possible publication of this compromising video.

"Attention Math, they are big, big thugs", would have warned the Madrid player.

One way of "helping" his teammate later explained Karim Benzema, while Mathieu Valbuena confessed to having "the impression of being taken for an idiot".

It will be for justice to determine if this exchange is friendly advice or tortious pressure.

Former French international Djibril Cissé, for a time implicated in this affair, was dismissed in January.

When Karim Benzena was referred to the Versailles Criminal Court in January, his lawyer Sylvain Cormier had denounced a "relentlessness" and "a decision as absurd as predictable".

© 2021 AFP