Guilty! France star Benzema sex blackmail of team-mate
FOOTBALL superstar Karim Benzema has been found guilty of helping four friends try to blackmail one of his France teammates over a sex video.
Judges heard the Real Madrid striker – who refused to attend his sentencing in Paris – urged Mathieu Valbuena to co-operate with the pals who were threatening to expose the intimate clip ‘in the English media’.
Valbuena alerted police when he had an anonymous call about the tape in 2015 after he had asked a friend to help him upload the contents of his mobile phone.
Undercover officers lured the gang to a meeting where they were arrested. Two of the group had ties to former Liverpool player Djibril Cisse, who was arrested but later released.
Benzema was said to have been recruited by an old friend in the gang to act as a middleman, and the court heard he approached his team-mate about the photos at a training camp. The scandal led to Benzema and Valbuena both being left out of the France squad for its victorious campaign in Russia at the 2018 World Cup. Fellow accused Younes Houass, 32, Moustapha Zouaoui and Axel Angot spent four months in pre-trial detention in 2016.
All denied wrongdoing during their four-day trial last month at Versailles criminal court. But judges yesterday delivered their verdict, finding all five guilty of attempted blackmail.
Five-time Champions League winner Benzema – who earns £10million a year at Real – was given a year’s suspended jail sentence and fined £62,000.
His lawyer Antoine Vey insisted he was innocent and vowed to appeal. He said the player was absent from court ‘for professional reasons’ as he prepared for a Champions League clash last night. Benzema, 33, was finally called up by France this
season and has been playing some of the best football of his career. Valbuena, 37, was never selected for Les Bleus again and now plays for Olympiacos in Greece.