Madrid (AFP)

French footballer Lucas Hernandez, sentenced to six months in prison for failing to comply with a removal measure after domestic violence, appeared before a Madrid court on Monday and has until October 28 to enter prison voluntarily, unless his appeal is accepted.

Taking the press by surprise, the Bayern Munich player presented himself "voluntarily at 11:30 am today (Monday), a day before his summons" to court, in order to be notified of his detention order, said in a communicated to the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJ).

The "ten-day period to enter prison voluntarily" set by justice therefore runs from Monday and expires "on October 28", according to the TSJ.

The French international, who appealed, still hopes to be able to escape prison if the justice responds favorably to his appeal before that date.

The case initially dates back to February 3, 2017, the date of a violent couple's argument.

The one who is not yet world champion with the Blues, then aged 21, and his partner Amelia Lorente had come to blows, exchanging blows and scratches in front of their home in Madrid at dawn.

She hit and scratched him before scratching his car with a key, while the player hit him on the ribs, back, jaw and lips, according to the judgment consulted by AFP.

They had both been sentenced at the end of February 2017 to the same sentence by a court in Madrid for "domestic violence": 31 days of community service accompanied by a six-month ban on approaching less than 500 meters l 'to each other and communicate.

- Honeymoon -

But four months later, in June, when they both returned from their honeymoon in the United States where they were married, the player is arrested at Madrid airport for not having respected this measure of remoteness.

Incongruously: his wife, with whom he had since had a child born in 2018, had not been arrested because this measure had not yet been formally notified to him.

Lucas Hernandez, freshly recruited by the Bayern Munich is officially presented, with his wife Amelia Llorente, at the Allianz Arena, July 8, 2019 Christof STACHE AFP / Archives

Placed a few hours in police custody, the footballer, who was playing at Atlético Madrid at the time, was finally sentenced, in 2019, to six months in prison.

He had appealed but his appeal was rejected last week by a court in Madrid which demanded his imprisonment and refused to adjust his sentence, as is usually the case in Spain for people sentenced to less than two years in prison. and having a clean criminal record.

- Repeat offender -

The court underlined that the footballer was a "repeat offender" because of this conviction of 2017 for "an offense of injury in the context of domestic violence" and that which followed in 2019 for non-compliance with the measure of removal but also of "another conviction" for "domestic violence", dictated by a court of Mostoles, city of the suburbs of Madrid.

Joined by AFP, the court of Mostoles refused to communicate on this last file of which we do not know the date of the facts and if it concerns the same Amelia Lorente.

A judicial source, however, told AFP that the sentence in this case had been firm since May 2018 and therefore had to be pronounced at least two years before, in 2016.

Lucas Hernandez, pillar of the defense of the Blues, against Belgium in the League of Nations in Turin, October 7, 2021 FRANCK FIFE AFP / Archives

This case is a thorn in the side of the defender of Bayern Munich, the most expensive player in the history of the club and the entire Bundesliga, transferred from Atlético to Bayern in the summer of 2019 for 80 million euros.

And after Benjamin Mendy (accused of four rapes and a sexual assault), who will be tried in January 2022 in England, and Karim Benzema (complicity in attempted blackmail), whose trial begins Wednesday in Paris, she could also upset the plans of the France team in view of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (November 21 - December 18, 2022).

© 2021 AFP