Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema has been found guilty of complicity in attempting to blackmail his former teammate Mathieu Valbuena with a sex video. Player was sentenced to one year of imprisonment with suspension of the sentence, which will have to be paid in case of recidivism, e a 75 thousand euro fine. The Court of Versailles found that Benzema’s conversation with Valbuena in which she tried to get him to get in touch with the blackmailers constituted a “deliberate” intervention for the then Lyon player to pay to prevent the video from being broadcast. Benzema’s lawyer has announced that he will appeal the sentence. “The court has clearly indicated that Benzema was unaware of the preliminary maneuvers. We are quite stunned by this ruling. The appeal is necessary,” assured the lawyer.
With this verdict of the Court of Versailles, Karim Benzema continues with a story that began more than five years ago, in which the striker tried, through his lawyers, to defend his innocence, and which cost him to stay out of the national team until Deschamps decided, at the end of last season, to call him again for the European Championship and thus revoke the punishment. Noël Le Graët, president of the French Federation, had already warned three weeks ago that the judge’s decision would not affect his sporting career with France, so Karim Benzema will play his second World Cup in Qatar.
The defense of the Madrid striker insisted that his action was exclusively to help Valbuena, without any bad intentions.. The prosecutor asked for the lowest prison sentence against the Madrid-born, 10 months, in the end it was 12, but the hardest economic one, with the argument that the attacker must have an exemplary attitude for his image to influence society. Benzema is the only one who has not been accused of blackmail and on whom only the accusation of complicity has weighed.
Source-www.adnkronos.com