FRANCE/FILE: FOOTBALL/SOCCER - French footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema stand trial over accusations of paying for sex with an underage call girl

Record ID: 194149

  • Title: FRANCE/FILE: FOOTBALL/SOCCER - French footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema stand trial over accusations of paying for sex with an underage call girl
  • Date: 20th January 2014
  • Summary: CLAIREFONTAINE, FRANCE (FILE - MARCH 18, 2013) (REUTERS) PLAYERS FRANCK RIBERY AND KARIM BENZEMA TRAINING ZURICH, SWITZERLAND (JANUARY 13, 2014) (REUTERS) RIBERY ARRIVING AT THE FIFA BALLON D'OR AWARD CEREMONY IN COMPANY OF HIS WIFE
  • Embargoed: 4th February 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain, France
  • City:
  • Country: France Spain
  • Topics: Crime,People,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA8ZRW7Y7FRAHUJGV85XUIJJ6HJ
  • Story Text: The trial of French soccer internationals Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema on charges of soliciting an underage prostitute started in Paris on Monday (January 20).
    Real Madrid striker Benzema and Bayern Munich forward Ribery, who are not attending the four-day hearing, are being tried on charges of paying Zahia Dehar, a prostitute-turned-fashion model, for sex in 2008 and 2009, when she was aged 16 and 17.
    Ribery has admitted paying her for sex but said he did not know how hold she was. Benzema has denied having any sexual relations with Dehar.
    Ribery's lawyer Carlo-Alberto Brusa told reporters at the court as the hearing opened his client was confident about proceedings.
    "He is very well, he fought through sport to overcome the judicial adversities and also some media attention which was hard to deal with, but today he has confidence in his country's justice system, and everything will be done so that justice be handed down in the most peaceful way," he said.
    "I will do everything I can so that France has a leading football player be cleared of everything, of those defamatory undignified accusations against Mr. Ribery," he said, referring to Ribery's participation to the next World Cup in Brazil in June.
    Benzema's lawyer, Sylvain Cormier, told reporters his client was relieved the trial was finally beginning.
    "I would say firstly that he is impatient, this affair has been running after him for the past four years, four years during which he has claimed his innocence and for the first time he will be able to plead his innocence and, I hope, to demonstrate it," he said.
    The footballers' lawyers also stressed that a Paris prosecutor said during the investigation that there was no evidence to prove that Ribery and Benzema could have known the girl was a minor.
    Paying for sex is not illegal in France but underage prostitution is.
    The trial is going on amid a heated debate in France over a reform of prostitution laws aimed at imposing fines on clients.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register