The trial of Moroccan star singer Saad Lamjarred, accused of raping and beating a young woman in a hotel room in 2016 on the sidelines of a concert planned in Paris, opened on the morning of Monday, February 20.
Saad Lamjarred, 37, appears free before the Paris Assize Court. In a black suit and white shirt, he took his place in the front row, alongside an interpreter. The civil party, Laura P., sat on a bench on the other side of the small courtroom.
The facts she denounces date back to October 2016. Aged 20, she had followed the pop star and a couple of her friends to an "after party", after meeting them in a nightclub. At the end of an evening loaded with alcohol and cocaine, she had accompanied Saad Lamjarred to his hotel on the Champs-Elysées. They had kissed but when he became more enterprising, she tried to stop him, she told investigators. He then allegedly beat and raped her.
She had fled the room and was picked up by hotel employees, who described a "terrorized" and crying young woman. These same employees had stopped the presumably drunk man who was chasing her.
Saad Lamjarred claims to have only defended himself when Laura P. had suddenly attacked him while they were kissing, and disputes any penetration. He had only sued her to avoid a "scandal" because he was known. The singer, adored in Morocco and famous throughout the Arab world, was in Paris for a concert scheduled at the Palais des Congrès.
Incarcerated in the process, he was released under an electronic bracelet in 2017 - before being briefly detained again in 2018 because he was indicted for the rape of another young woman in Saint-Tropez (Var). Saad Lamjarred was also implicated in rapes in similar circumstances in Casablanca and New York. His trial in Paris is scheduled until Friday.
