Burglaries: French rugby player Mohamed Haouas sentenced to 18 months suspended prison sentence

Europe 1 with AFP 2:17 p.m., February 04, 2022

Almost indisputable holder with the French rugby team, Mohamed Haouas, 27, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison suspended for his involvement in burglaries eight years ago.

A difficult past that he has finally settled.

Initially scheduled for January 2021 and postponed several times, this trial before the Montpellier Criminal Court deprived the Montpellier Hérault Rugby player, current 2nd in the Top 14, of the opening match of the Six Nations Tournament with the Blues on Sunday against Italy.

"It is an exemplary course for young people, and I take it into account. He wants to settle his debt, close this chapter", had recognized the prosecutor, asking "18 months in prison with a suspended sentence and a 15,000 euro fine "against the pillar of the France team.

An indictment followed to the letter by the court.

His co-defendant sentenced him to 18 months in prison

The co-defendant of Mohamed Haouas, who appeared detained, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

A third man, a minor at the time, was referred to a juvenile judge.

Navy blue hooded jacket, pants and black surgical mask, Mohamed Haouas, colossus of 1.85 m for 125 kg, had arrived with his wife and the manager of the Hérault club, the former coach of the Blues Philippe Saint-André.

Arrested in June 2014, detained for four days in a remand center as part of the investigation into a series of burglaries of tobacco shops in Montpellier between February and April of that year, the international had to answer for "thefts in meeting with breaking and entering" and the "receiving" of a stolen car.

His DNA had been found on the rubber band of a headlamp abandoned by the burglars.

The loot consisted mainly of boxes of cigarettes, scratch lottery tickets and tax stamps, for a value of several tens of thousands of euros.

During the investigation, however, he had always denied the facts, only acknowledging that he had participated in the transport of certain boxes of cigarettes.

"'Momo', tell them to hurry, we have training at 2 p.m.", launched Saint-André before the opening of the hearing, to try to cheer up his player.

Visibly tense, the pillar of the Blues gradually relaxed, listening carefully to the debates, in the front row.

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The complicated youth of Mohamed Haouas

At the helm, he preferred to remain silent on the facts, to "let his lawyer speak".

But he easily answered personality questions, explaining that he was married, had two children, a four-year-old son and a four-month-old daughter, and earned 15,000 euros a month as a professional rugby player.

Conceding "mistakes of youth", he returned to his childhood in the sensitive district of Petit Bard in Montpellier, plagued by poverty, unemployment and drug trafficking, where he had arrived with his parents, from the North: "At the time it was dangerous, either you stay or you escape. (...) They beat me to steal my bike, we fought. They tested me, I had no big -brother, nor father, I had to defend myself". "We ate in Coluche (Editor's note: les Restaus du cœur), we lived in hostels, hotels, it was a bit complicated", he recalled.

One certainty: he is "proud" of the man he has become. "I struggled in life, I got by, I'm proud to have built a family, a house," he insisted, questioned by his lawyer, Me Marc Gallix. And on the rugby side, it's "a pride" to wear the blue jersey, for him, the Franco-Algerian kid. "I'm the mascot in the locker room, I make everyone laugh, I'm always in a good mood, even when things are not going well, I don't show it", explains the one whom his partners have nicknamed "Kubiac", this giant glutton of a TV series of the 1990s. Coming late to rugby, at 15, the former taekwondo adept is now trying to attract other young people to his sport: "If they need clothes , crampons, I pay for them,I wish I had known that."