After more than two weeks of trial, the Paris Assize Court delivered its verdict on Saturday September 23. She sentenced the rapper MHD to twelve years of criminal imprisonment for the murder, in 2018, of a young man, lynched as part of a settling of scores between rival Parisian gangs, facts which he disputes.
Five of his co-defendants were also sentenced to terms ranging from ten years to eighteen years in prison, the maximum sentence having been imposed on a defendant who is on the run and was therefore tried in absentia; his DNA had been detected on a knife found at the crime scene. Three other men were acquitted.
When the verdict was announced, several women present in the public, relatives of the accused, burst into tears. MHD remained stoic before hugging a crying woman. His lawyers did not wish to make a statement after the verdict. Those convicted have ten days to appeal.
“Heavy hearing, but a judicial truth emerged despite the law of silence,” reacted Me Juliette Chapelle, lawyer for the victim’s family.
The attorney general had estimated in his submissions that the facts for which the Assize Court was seized were “at the top of the scale of criminological seriousness”, calling for heavy sentences against seven of the nine accused in this case. Saturday morning, the rapper proclaimed his innocence one last time, in front of a packed house, before the court retired to deliberate.
Several witnesses implicated MHD
On the night of July 5 to 6, 2018, Loïc K., aged 23, died after being deliberately knocked down by a Mercedes in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, then beaten by around ten men and lacerated with blows. knife. The car was found a day later, burned, in a parking lot. At the heart of the matter, a settling of scores between young people from the city of Chaufourniers, nicknamed the red city, and the neighboring city of Grange aux Belles, located in the 10th and 19th arrondissements.
In this case, several witnesses notably implicated the rapper MHD, whose real name is Mohamed Sylla, originally from Chaufourniers. Investigators established that the burned Mercedes belonged to him and witnesses claimed to have seen him on board.
Furthermore, one of the videos of the scene, taken by a witness from an apartment, shows an African man with dyed blond hair, wearing a Puma tracksuit. However, at that time, MHD had peroxided hair and was an ambassador for the sportswear brand. Since the beginning of the facts, he has denied having been present at the scene of the crime.
“His position is the rumor which made it easy for the members of the Grange aux Belles group to say ‘it must be him’”, observed the attorney general in his requisitions. “It was not through rumor that Mr. Sylla’s car was identified as that of the commission of the facts,” he added, listing all the evidence which, according to him, incriminates the rapper.
“Law of Silence”
This affair clearly slowed down the career of MHD, a pioneer of afro-trap, a mixture of hip-hop and African music, revealed in 2015 thanks to a video posted on YouTube that went viral, the starting point of a meteoric rise.
From a pizza deliveryman, in a few months he became a recognized star not only in France but also abroad, where he was noticed by artists like Madonna and Drake. A “success story” put on hold by his arrest and his placement in pre-trial detention – he will remain incarcerated for a year and a half before being released under judicial supervision.
Three men were acquitted on Saturday, the court considering that one of them, Wissem E., was not at the scene at the time of the crime; for the other two, Saber B. and Moussa K., she did not have sufficient evidence to convict them.
This case was illustrated, throughout the investigations and then the debates at the trial, by the law of silence to which the accused, but also numerous witnesses, submitted. A large number of them, although summoned, did not appear in court. A law of silence dictated by the “fear of reprisals”, according to several people.
