Benzema is “surprised and scandalized” by the jail request

The Real Madrid striker is “surprised and scandalized” because the prosecution claims against him 10 months in jail and a 75,000-euro fine for complicity in blackmailing his former teammate Mathieu Valbuena, his lawyer, Sylvain Cormier, told EFE. “Benzema cannot be convicted when he has done nothing. A court must put aside the spectacle and concentrate on the merits. We will ask that tomorrow in our plea.”, advanced the lawyer at the end of the second day of the trial in the Court of Versailles. Cormier said that he had informed Benzema of the prosecution’s request and that the Madrid player, the only one of the five defendants who did not attend the oral hearing, “is surprised and scandalized.”

The lawyer emphasized that if he was convicted in the sentence that – according to judicial sources – will be handed down tomorrow at the end of the process, that should not influence the vote for the Ballon d’Or that ends next Sunday and for the that Benzema is one of the favorites. “There is no relationship between one thing and another,” said the lawyer, adding that “sooner or later Benzema will be acquitted of these accusations.” Cormier reproached the Prosecutor’s Office for having mediated the case, taking advantage of the celebrity of his client to obtain a greater repercussion.

“Justice has sought the show from the beginning. The Prosecutor’s Office has dramatized this case. It announced the arrest of Benzema in 2015, when it could have been done discreetly. We continue in that line”, She complained. In his opinion, although the representatives of the Public Ministry “assure that they do not do it because he is a star, it is not true. There is no factual or legal proof. They overinterpret a fragment of conversation and how (the soccer player) is known, you have to be severe”. “The notoriety of Benzema, according to the prosecutor, should allow him to be convicted without evidence and to request more severe penalties than for the others,” he commented.