Benzema arraigned in court over sex-tape row

The sex-tape row case between Karim Benzema and Mathieu Valbuena returned to court on Monday.
The Court of Cassation, the highest-ranked court in the French justice system, assembled on Monday afternoon with 19 magistrates to try and settle a case which first emerged four years ago.
Valbuena complained to police in June 2015 after he was contacted by a man who sought a lucrative deal in exchange for not publishing an intimate video of the player and his girlfriend.
Benzema has been indicted since 2015 – along with Alex Angot, Mustapha Zouaoui, Younes Houass, Karim Zenati and Djibril Cisse – on grounds of ‘complicity in attempted blackmail and participation in a conspiracy’.
Monday’s plenary hearing went through evidence on the record once again, before reaching a verdict before the end of December.
But the Real Madrid striker’s defence lawyers believe that the police may have acted dishonestly in the investigation and therefore argue that the case should subsequently be dropped.
One policeman went undercover using the pseudonym ‘Lukas’ and lawyers, according to a report in L’Equipe, feel that he implicated Benzema and others with telephone calls later retrieved as evidence.
The transcripts are said to reveal that ‘Lukas’, initially speaking to Houass before Benzema was involved, was ‘the first to talk about money and ransom’ and it will remain a key part of the defence at the Court of Cassation.
An initial appeal to CAC on July 11, 2018, concluded that “Lukas” had initiated contact after “weeks of silence” with the group and is said to have “provocatively” got on the topic of money.