In an exclusive interview with our colleagues at RMC, Karim Benzema’s lawyer Alain Jakubowicz has responded to the damning interview that Mathieu Valbuena gave this morning to Le Monde.
Do Mathieu Valbuena’s comments this morning change the notion of the “positive intermediary” Karim Benzema that you have defended?
No. When they see each other in Karim Benzema’s room in Clairefontaine, Karim effectively invites Mathieu Valbuena to get into contact with his friend. He also says to him: “If you have warned your family, don’t pay.” But why does he invite Mathieu Valbuena to come into contact with his friend? There are two versions.
The first: so that he pays but that is never said and it is not what Mathieu Valbuena thinks at the time of this conversation. It is what he thinks upon reflection. The second version consists of saying: “Me, I like Mathieu Valbuena, you do not mess with my friends. It turns out that I have a friend called Karim Zenati who has certain acquaintances and contacts with the thugs of Marseille. And to say to them: “Don’t mess with my friend.”
There we are in an intermediation that is positive. Who can tell you the truth today? What I contest formally, is the unequivocal vision in this case, as a charge against Karim Benzema despite that there is not a single objective element that can affirm it [his wrongdoing].
This interview therefore does not change your defence?
No. My defence is summarised by two things. Karim is effectively an intermediary, but he is a positive intermediary and not a negative one. The declarations of Mathieu Valbuena are not dishonest but they are subjective in the light in which he understood them, a way that he would not have understood before filing his legal complaint.
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This is the first time that I see a victim of blackmail who is not the first to be heard in a case on the role of each individual! He says in Le Monde that the police officers told him: “Do not worry, we do not need your testimony.” But what are they mixing up the policemen? Since when have they been investigating? They are losing their marbles!
Moreover, in my complaint regarding the violation of the privacy of the investigation, I will ask the judge to take a very very close interest in the people who ran this investigation because it is not excluded that the leak came from there.
Mathieu Valbuena has said that he is very disappointed by Karim Benzema…
Disappointment is not an offence. And honestly I understand him. When you read the re-transcription of the conversation with Zenati… He said that they took him for an idiot so not to say pillock. It is true what he is saying during that moment is not very nice. He speaks still of a lack of respect notably with the term “tarlouze” (meaning essentially a fagg**) but that never happened.
Karim explained himself. We are effectively not drowning in the poetic nature of the moment during this conversation. But Karim indicated that in front of the judge. It happens to him when he is speaking to his friends to overplay things. And that is what Mathieu Valbuena says to the judge when he says that there is a gap between his conversation with Karim and that between Karim Benzema and Karim Zenati. Mathieu Valbuena is perfectly honest.
Upon reading Mathieu Valbuena’s interview, one has the impression that the defence for Karim Benzema has been weakened…
Absolutely not. The defence of Karim Benzema is of total peace of mind. But it is coming from everywhere… When you see the spitting affair (after La Marseillaise, during Real Madrid vs Barcelona), this story with this rapper… Everyday, something comes out! You are trying to dirty the image of Karim Benzema.
It is not acceptable. I have invited Karim Benzema to speak. He is an important personality, it is therefore important that the citizens know his true personality which is the opposite to what people are trying to describe today.