The 46-year-old French rap star is criticized for a message published in November 2019 on the social network Instagram where he wrote against Zineb El Rhazoui: "let's rot the life of this big stinky shit".
This message followed remarks made by the journalist on CNews, where she had declared, in connection with urban violence which occurred in Mantes-la-Jolie, in the Parisian suburbs: "the police must shoot live ammunition in these cases- there".
Both parties were absent from the proceedings on Tuesday.
The lawyer for the civil party, Me Thibault de Montbrial, recalled that his client was a person regularly threatened, who lives under police protection.
"This affair contributed to weighing down the target on the shoulders of Zineb El Rhazoui," he said, blaming Booba for having triggered "a shitstorm, a storm of shit" of which she was the victim.
"He can't ignore the impact this is going to have."
In defense, Me Yann Le Bras, the lawyer of the "Duke of Boulogne", explained that on the contrary the latter was completely unaware of the time who was the journalist.
His client, he pleaded, wanted to speak out against "incitement to police violence".
French author and journalist Zineb El Rhazoui in Paris, May 12, 2022 © JOEL SAGET / AFP/Archives
"+ Big stinky shit +, that's his expression (...) He used a terminology that is not that of the intellectual who would like to denounce, in more chosen terms, + nauseating remarks +", a-t -he declares.
"The humor is very little perceptible in this scatological overflow", for his part estimated the prosecutor during his requisitions, asking against Booba a fine of 10,000 euros, a sentence "effective and proportional" in view of the income of the rapper.
The latter, who lives in Miami (United States) most of the year, was sentenced in October 2018 to an eighteen-month suspended prison sentence for his famous fight with his rival Kaaris at Orly airport. .
The deliberation will be returned to Nanterre on April 4.
© 2023 AFP