Cheb Mami under arrest in Paris

01/07/2009

Years after allegations of violence first arose, Cheb Mami will finally appear in a French court on Thursday. The Algerian media remains cautiously optimistic.

By Lyes Aflou for Magharebia in Algiers –01/07/09

[AFP/Getty Images] Algerian music legend Cheb Mami is in a Paris jail awaiting trial on Thursday.

French police on Monday evening (June 29th) arrested Algerian rai superstar Cheb Mami upon his arrival in Paris. After four years, an international tabloid stew involving a forced-abortion claim, an Interpol arrest warrant and a long legal battle will finally end on Thursday in a Bobigny courtroom.

Cheb Mami- aka Mohamed Khelifati- is accused of "acts of violence" towards his former partner Isabelle. In the summer of 2005, the victim, a 43-year-old press photographer who was covering his artistic activities, was allegedly drugged and forcibly held in the singer's Algiers villa, where two women and a man attempted to perform an abortion.

In 2007, the singer posted a bond of 200,000 euros in France and returned to Algeria. Since then, he has been wanted on an international arrest from Interpol, which demanded that Algeria extradite him to France to stand trial.

After the incident, the woman returned to France and lodged a complaint. She learned that the foetus was viable and decided to keep the child. Her daughter was born in March 2006.

Cheb Mami was arrested shortly after 7 pm at Orly airport as he got off a plane from Algeria. The border police were acting on an international warrant for his arrest.

Around 11 pm. a judge ruled that he should be held in jail until his Thursday trial.

The singer faces 10 years in prison and a fine of 150,000 euros. His former manager, Maurice Levy, must also appear on the same charges under a supervision order, along with his right-hand man, Hicham Lazaar, and Abdelkader Lallali – the man he is suspected of hiring.

In its June 30th edition, French weekly news magazine Le Point reported that Isabelle claims to have a recording proving that the singer was present at the time the acts of which he is accused took place. The weekly recalls that Mami, initially imprisoned for three months in Paris following the claims, was then released on bail after payment of 200,000 euros, "before then fleeing to Algeria in May 2007 while still under a supervision order".

Mami left France for Algeria while still under a supervision order to be at his ill mother's bedside, Tout sur l'Algérie retorted. Mami will prove that "he did nothing wrong, given that he has accepted to be present for the trial," the daily editorialised.

Cheb Mami told the Quotidien d'Oran in 2007 that he hoped to stand trial in Algeria because he did not trust the French legal system.

"I haven't run away from justice, I've run away from injustice. I've run away from a two-speed legal system," he declared at the time.

According to his lawyer, Khaled Labseur, Cheb Mami returned to France "to put his side of the facts behind this case".

Charges against Mami, however, could turn out to be more serious than previously thought, Le Matin d'Algérie cautioned, adding that he could spend "a long time in prison".