A$AP Rocky pleads not guilty to assault at start of trial in Stockholm
A$AP Rocky has pleaded not guilty to assault at the start of his trial in Sweden in a case that has strained international relations after celebrity entertainers rallied to the US rapper’s cause and Donald Trump publicly demanded his release.
Prosecutors allege the platinumselling artist, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, and two members of his entourage “deliberately, together and in agreement” attacked the alleged victim, Mustafa Jafari, in the Swedish capital on 30 June.
The men, who say they were responding to harassment and provocations, have been in custody since 3 July and face up to two years in prison if the charges, for assault causing actual bodily harm, are upheld. Their trial continues on Thursday and is due to close on Friday.
“He admits that he threw the plaintiff on the ground, that he stepped on his arm and punched or pushed his shoulder,” Mayers’ lawyer, Slobodan Jovicic, told the court, but insisted that it was a case of self-defence.
Mayers, 30, dressed in prison uniform of a green T-shirt and trousers, sat near his mother, Renee Black, who appeared to have been crying, in the Stockholm district court but was not called to speak.
Entertainment industry figures including Kim Kardashian West, Justin Bieber, Post Malone and Shawn Mendes have backed a #JusticeForRocky campaign. The US president called the Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, to ask that the rapper be freed on bail – a system that does not exist in Sweden.
The public prosecutor, Daniel Suneson, showed the court phone and CCTV footage that he said showed Mayers and the two other men kicking and beating Jafari and hitting him with whole or part of a glass bottle.
Jafari is claiming SEK 139,700 (£12,050) in damages for the alleged attack, arguing “the perpetrator had shown great ruthlessness and cruelty”. Suneson said the incident started outside a hamburger restaurant on Hötorget in the city centre.
Mayers and his five-strong entourage were approached by the plaintiff and another man who were “argumentative and perceived as intrusive and difficult”, the prosecutor said. This led to a confrontation in which a bodyguard “first pushed away the plaintiff, then lifted him up by the throat”, he said.
Suneson said Jafari’s headphones were broken and thrown on to a restaurant awning during the initial brawl, which escalated in neighbouring Olofsgatan where the 19-year old, who was demanding his headphones back, was “beaten, thrown to the ground and beaten again”.
The prosecutor showed the court police photographs of bloodstains and broken glass left in the street, as well as of Jafari’s injuries, which included a broken rib and cuts to his head, arms and legs that required hospital treatment and stitches.
He said the clips posted to the artist’s Instagram had been edited to remove evidence the bodyguard grabbed Jafari before to the fight, and presented text messages between members of Mayers’ entourage indicating the footage uploaded to Instagram had been “cleaned up a bit”.
Lawyers for Mayers’ and his entourage said Jafari had initiated the violence. They argued that the suspects had not broken any bottles, but that broken glass may have ended up on their shoes, causing the victims’s cuts.
Cross-examined by Suneson, Jafari, an Afghan national, said he did not speak good English and had “no intention of quarrelling”, but had been attacked by Mayers’ group, at least two of whom “tried to stab me with a broken bottle”. He said he had been in pain and unable to work since the alleged attack.
Much of the video material emerged before the trial, posted both by the celebrity news website TMZ and by Mayers to his own Instagram account. The rapper wrote in a caption that two men had been following his group and one had hit a bodyguard in the face with headphones. He was innocent, he said.
One of the rapper’s lawyers, Martin Persson, told Aftonbladet newspaper the defence would present evidence suggesting it was not clear a bottle had even been used in the alleged attack, let alone by whom. “We have an ace up our sleeve,” he said.
The case turned into a minor diplomatic incident after Kardashian West appealed directly to Trump, prompting the president to tweet that he would “call the very talented Prime Minister of Sweden to see what we can do about helping A$AP Rocky”.
The two men spoke by phone, with Trump offering to “personally vouch for [Mayers’] bail, or an alternative”. Löfven issued a statement saying that in Sweden the judicial system, prosecutors and courts were completely independent.
Trump subsequently tweeted that he was “very disappointed” in Löfven, adding: “Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM. We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem!”
That drew an indignant response from several leading political figures in Sweden. “The rule of the law applies to everyone equally and is exercised by an independent judiciary,” tweeted the former prime minister Carl Bildt. “Political interference is distinctly off limits. Clear?”