The Real Madrid player Karim Benzema He will have to return this Wednesday, October 20, to Versailles, the city where he spent a night in the dungeon in November 2015. There it will be court by a Court for alleged complicity in the blackmail to his former teammate Mathieu Valbuena.
But what is the ‘Valbuena Case’?
In 2015, Benzema he was charged with “complicity in the blackmail attempt”. The ram allegedly pressured Mathieu Valbuena so that he would pay a large sum of money to avoid thus coming to light a video yours of content sexual with his wife.
The images were obtained in July 2014 by Axel Angot, known to various players for his computer skills. Valbuena contacted him to try to recover data from his mobile, which was damaged. At first Angot saved the file on her computer with no intention of making it public.
However, months later he had to pay a debt and turned to him. Next to Mustapha Zouaoui, another old man known to soccer players because he provides them with luxury products, they drew up a plan to obtain financial compensation.
The idea was to let the midfielder know about the existence of these images through his partner Djibril Cisse and, at the same time, propose the help of Angot to delete it. But Valbuena did not react and they then went to Younes Houass, one of his trusted men. Far from succumbing to their requests, Valbuena took the case before the police, who began to wiretap telephone conversations.
This is how they discovered that the blackmailers had come into contact with Zenati who, in turn, asked for help from Benzema. The Real Madrid attacker confirmed that such a conversation had existed, but with the sole purpose of advising his friend and never with the intention of pressuring him.
Benzema can get up to 5 years in prison
However, the French Supreme Court considered that he had participated “in an illicit association for the preparation of a punishable offense with a minimum of five years in prison “. And it is that in the intervened calls the merengue player described his partner as a “fag” and assured that he had “swallowed” the pressure.
Benzema He also recognized during the first interrogations that he had told Valbuena that he himself had seen the video. Some statements that he later retracted and that the prosecution interprets as an attempt to increase pressure to pay.
All of this led to Karim to be separated from the French team. The Frenchman played the last match for his national team on October 8 against Armenia. A duel in which, precisely, he doubled and gave an assist. Nevertheless, Didier Deschamps decided to do without it during the Euro 2016, in which they were runners-up after falling against Portugal.
In addition, it deprived him of conquering the Russia World Cup 2018 despite being in the best moment of his career, even chosen as a candidate to win the Golden Ball.
Against all odds, this year the coach ‘bleu’ included his name in the ready of 26 players for the Eurocup: “I am making decisions for the good of the French team and I think that’s what I did with Karim Benzema. But we must not forget that over the years the French team won many titles,” explained the coach at a press conference.
Karim, summoned to the bench this Wednesday, October 20
Despite this and the fact that his lawyers have always tried to avoid it, Karim Benzema he will have to sit on the dock, as we said, this Wednesday, October 20. However, their presence has not yet been confirmed.