The trials of Saad Lamjarred
The Moroccan pop star has been arrested again in France over a second rape charge
Few in the Arab world wouldn’t recognise the name of the popular composer-singer-actor Saad Lamjarred.
On Tuesday, Lamjarred was detained in France after prosecutors successfully appealed against his bail terms over his second rape charge.
The 33-year-old Moroccan pop star, who comes from a well-heeled family, was charged on August 28 with the rape of a young woman in Saint Tropez in south-eastern France, where he was spending the summer vacation at a resort.
The public prosecutor’s charge sheet described the accusations to be “acts that could be described as rape”. The complaint from the young French seasonal worker at the resort was not the first made against the artist.
At the time of the incident, Lamjarred was already out on bail from a previous rape case. The pop star was previously arrested on October 26, 2016 following police complaint of physical assault and rape by Laura Prioul at a hotel in Paris earlier that month.
After a six-month detention, Lamjarred gained temporary freedom in April 2017 — but his passport was confiscated and he was released on bail with an electronic tag. Since then, he has been stuck in France waiting for his trial.
Lamjarred’s high-profile lawyer Eric DupondMoretti, who was assigned by Moroccan King Mohammad VI in 2016 to defend the star in the first case, decided to quit the star’s defence team last month after the fresh rape accusations were lodge in Saint-Tropez.
Prioul, who had accused the Moroccan singer in 2017, voiced her joy in a tweet, describing the French judiciary order to detain Lamjarred over the recent rape case as “just”, and thanked everybody for the support.
Here’s what you need to know about Lamjarred and his continuing brushes with the law:
WHO IS LAMJARRED?
When Lamjarred first entered showbiz, he was considered a young musical genius who disrupted Arab pop music.
Every song Lamjarred released since 2015 has become a smash-hit across the Arab world, trending on music charts for months. In 2015, his song Lm3allen (The Boss) earned a Guinness World record after getting 500 million views on Youtube within three months of release. User views today stand at 650 million.
In 2016, Lamjarred’s music video of his single Ghaltana (You’re Mistaken)
drew more than 145 million views.
LEGAL TROUBLES
In August, Saad was released on bail a day after he was arrested. While facing his second rape case and on bail from the first rape case, prosecutors appealed against the bail terms, and he was arrested again this week. He is now expected to stay in jail until his trial starts.
Prosecutors told AFP the latest case was “complex” and involved two “radically opposed versions of events”.
But no details were yet released of the allegations made against him.
Those two cases against Lamjarrad in France are not the only ones: In 2010, he was arrested in New York on suspicion of beating and raping a woman.
He fled the US while he was on bail. Later, the charges were dropped.
Amid the 2016 accusation, the Moroccan media have also reported a rape case that was withdrawn in his home country.
A French-Moroccan woman claimed to have
been physically assaulted by Lamjarred in Casablanca, reported the incident to the police, but later withdrew the complaint under pressure from her family.
WHY FANS IDOLISE LAMJARRED
When the singer was arrested in 2016 fans, celebrities, officials across the Arab world didn’t believe the accusations and supported the singer. The Moroccan King himself intervened to cover the singer’s legal fees, and appointed the high-profile lawyer Eric DupondMoretti to defend him.
A hashtag was started by celebrities in support of Lamjarred, which starting trending on social media.
Many of his fans maintained that he was the victim of a smear campaign because his popularity was on the rise.
Moroccan media also showed footage of protests “in solidarity” with the singer during his detention, in France.
The first song he released one year after the alleged incident — and dedicated to the king — showed just how popular he remained, gaining over 140 million views.
A month ago, in August, he also released Casablanca, which reached 77 million views.
CHANGE OF HEART
Since his arrest on Tuesday, and a second rape charge, not much has been heard from his fellow celebrities, who have begun to have second thoughts about the alleged rapist.
Famous actress Hind Sabri went down harsh on Lamjarred: “I was one of the people who ruled out the first accusation, but the repetition killed any doubt. This young man is mocking himself and his audience and does not deserve to be a star or an example to anyone.”
Many also took social media to express their disappointment in Lamjarred, especially Moroccan women who are fighting day and night against the growing rape cases in their country.
Fans also took to Twitter expressing their surprise.
“I don’t know how to feel #tbh poeple still ask to play his songs in all radio stations because it’s good music but also that he is a criminal and already jailed makes it weird,” one posted.