Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred appeared before a criminal court in southern France on Monday over allegations he raped a woman in a Saint Tropez hotel room in 2018, nearly two years after receiving a six year prison sentence in a separate French rape case that remains under appeal.
The trial opened behind closed doors before the criminal court in Draguignan after the complainant requested private proceedings, a standard legal provision in French rape cases. The hearings are scheduled to continue until Friday.
Lamjarred, 41, denies the accusations. According to investigators cited by Le Monde, the complainant, then working as a barmaid in Saint Tropez, said she met the singer at a nightclub before agreeing to have a drink at his hotel.
She alleged he instead took her directly to his room, forced himself on her and raped her while restraining her wrists.
Lamjarred has maintained the encounter was consensual and told investigators the woman voluntarily removed her trousers. But a friend called immediately after the incident testified she found the complainant in a distressed state, with smeared makeup, swollen lips and what prosecutors described as signs of shock.
Medical tests conducted hours later estimated the woman’s blood alcohol level at between 1.2 and 1.4 grams per liter, while Lamjarred’s was estimated between 1.6 and 1.8 grams per liter, according to Le Monde.
The case adds to a series of sexual assault allegations involving the singer across several countries over the past decade. In 2023, a Paris criminal court sentenced Lamjarred to six years in prison for raping and assaulting a woman in a separate 2016 case. He has appealed that conviction.
French prosecutors had initially not opposed dismissing the Saint Tropez case, but an appeals court in Aix en Provence ordered the singer to stand trial in 2021, ruling that entering a man’s hotel room did not constitute automatic consent.
The latest proceedings also unfold weeks after five people, including a lawyer and an influencer, were convicted in France for attempting to extort 3 million euros from Lamjarred in exchange for withdrawing testimony in the 2016 Paris rape case.
add your comment
Terms of publication : Not to offend the writer, people, sacred things, or attack religions or the divine self, and refrain from racist incitement and insults.