Saad Lamjarred: Moroccan singer faces 3rd rape charge

Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred performs at the International Carthage Festival in Tunisia, 30 July 2016 Image copyright Getty Images Symbol caption Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred has in the past been accused of sexual attack

Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred has been detained in southern France over new allegations of rape, officials say.

The alleged incident took place in a hotel in Saint-Tropez. No additional main points had been given.

The 33-yr-antique is already on bail over an alleged rape case courting back to 2016 and used to be arrested in 2010 on suspicion of any other attack.

Mr Lamjarred’s 2015 hit Lmaallem has change into essentially the most-considered tune by way of an Arab artist on YouTube.

It has been observed greater than 650 million instances.

Prosecutors in the south-japanese town of Draguignan, close to Saint-Tropez, told AFP information company that the newest case was once “complex” and involved “extensively adversarial variations of occasions”.

What came about in the previous cases?

Mr Lamjarred was once first arrested on suspicion of beating and raping a lady in New York in 2010. He fled the u.s. at the same time as on bail and has not returned due to the fact.

Six years later, he was once accused of bodily assaulting and raping a young French woman in a resort in Paris. He used to be released on bail with an electronic tag in April 2017 expecting trial.

Shortly prior to his free up, French newspaper Le Parisien stated that a French-Moroccan woman have been physically assaulted by Mr Lamjarred in the Moroccan city of Casablanca years earlier.

She mentioned she pronounced the incident to the police but later withdrew the complaint stressed from her circle of relatives.

What has the response been?

In All Probability unusually within the age of #MeToo, earlier circumstances against Mr Lamjarred have performed little to wreck his popularity among enthusiasts.

When the singer was once arrested in 2016, the Moroccan king himself intervened to cover the singer’s prison fees.

Many of Mr Lamjarred’s fans care for the singer used to be the sufferer of a “plot” by means of neighbouring Algeria, which has strained family members with Morocco.

Moroccan media even showed footage of small protests “in harmony” with the singer all the way through his detention.

The first tune he released twelve months after the alleged incident – and devoted to the king – confirmed just how common he remained, gaining over 140m perspectives.

What about the sufferers?

The sufferer of the alleged assault in Paris spoke out in November last 12 months, whilst she uploaded a video on YouTube (in French), and designated the abuse she had experienced on-line.

“My title is Laura Prioul, I Am 21 years antique, and it has been twelve months given that i used to be physically attacked, hit and raped.

“For the past 12 months i’ve been hiding from the media, hiding from everybody, that everyone’s been talking about me.”

She recounted main points of the alleged assault and defined the death threats she won after her identity was once found out on-line.

“such a lot of folks had been talking about me, insulting me, and no person supported me aside from my circle of relatives and pals.”

Mr Lamjarred has denied Laura Prioul’s allegation of rape.

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