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Karim Benzema held over sextape blackmail

UPDATED: French football player Karim Benzema has been arrested over an alleged plot to blackmail fellow footballer Mathieu Valbuena with a sex tape, legal sources have said.

Published: 4 November 2015 11:03 CET
Karim Benzema held over sextape blackmail
Photo: AFP

The Real Madrid and France star arrived at the police station in Versailles, near Paris, early on Wednesday and was placed in detention, the local prosecutor confirmed, without giving further information.

Investigators are trying determine the extent to which Benzema was aware of the intimate video featuring Valbuena, which found its way into the hands of blackmailers.

According to the source, Benzema mentioned the sextape to Valbuena during a meeting of the French team in early October.

It is thought one of Benzema's relatives was contacted by the suspected blackmailers with a view to involving the footballer in their scheme, the source said.

Police are seeking to determine whether he was teasing Valbuena when he mentioned the tape, or trying to make him pay the blackmailers.

The blackmail case was first opened in late July, and carries a potential prison sentence of five years.

The three suspected blackmailers, who are friends with several footballers, were charged and placed in detention in October.

The case also saw four other people arrested last month, including former French international footballer Djibril Cissé.

Cissé took to live television the day after his arrest to insist that he was innocent.
 
The existence of any x-rated video involving Lyon player Valbuena (below) and his partner, however, has not actually been confirmed.
 
 
 
The incident is not the first time French striker Benzema has been embroiled in a police investigation.
   
In 2009, he and teammate Franck Ribery were accused of sleeping with an underage prostitute, Zahia Dehar.
   
Both men were finally cleared of wrongdoing five years later, by which time Dehar had become a reality TV star and fashion designer.

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FOOTBALL

Real Madrid’s Benzema hits out at attempted kidnapping claims

Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema has brushed off reports he was involved in the attempted kidnapping of an acquaintance who owes him €50,000.

Published: 19 October 2018 12:53 CEST
Real Madrid's Benzema hits out at attempted kidnapping claims
Karim Benzema has been accused of attempting to kidnap someone who owes him money. Photo: AFP

“This must stop,” Benzema said on his Twitter page Friday following a report by the Mediapart website implicating the exiled France international in the attempted kidnap.

Mediapart's report, published late on Thursday, claimed Benzema was personally involved in the alleged attempt because he was owed the money by a supposed victim identified only as Leo D.

The report cites the testimony of Leo D., a former acquaintance of Benzema's who filed a complaint with police on October 8th following the alleged kidnap.

The 33-year-old said close acquaintances of Benzema, including the player's driver, attempted to load him into a black van in Paris on October 7th following the Paris Saint-Germain v Lyon league clash.

Mediapart said money owed to the player was behind the attempt and that the victim, according to his testimony, believes he saw Benzema in the back of the van.

Prosecutors in Paris have opened an investigation into the driver over the attempted extortion, a source close to the investigation told AFP.   

Benzema, however, is believed not to have been present, according to the latest police reports Benzema's lawyer Sylvain Cormier played down Leo D.'s claims, saying: “This man has not been signed off from work for medical reasons, he's accusing a friend of Benzema's of grabbing his arm, and we also know that Karim Benzema was not present.

“And yet, he (Benzema) is being accused of attempted kidnapping. It's just grotesque.”

Benzema, who has not played for France since being left out of the squad ahead of Euro 2016, has been dogged by controversy in previous years.   

In 2010 he was one of four French players charged with soliciting sex with a minor, 16-year-old prostitute Zahia Dehar. The charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.

In 2015 he was arrested over his alleged role in a sextape scandal in which former France teammate Mathieu Valbuena was allegedly blackmailed.   

That episode put his France career on hold after then French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said “athletes need to be exemplary. If they are not, they have no place on the France team.”

The Paris appeals court is to rule in November on whether the sex tape investigation can continue.

READ MORE: Real Madrid's Benzema 'admits role' in sex tape blackmail scheme