The trial of Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred, accused of raping and beating a young woman in a hotel room on the sidelines of a concert in Paris in 2016, opened on Monday morning.
Saad Lamjarred, now 37, appears free before the Paris Assizes. Dressed in a black suit and white shirt, he took a seat in the front row next to an interpreter.
Co-plaintiff Laura P. sat on a bench across the small courtroom. When she saw him, she burst into tears.
As Saad Lamjarred stood up to state his identity and occupation as the “artist” behind the wheel, she turned her head away and stared at the ground.
The facts she denounces are from October 2016. At 20, she had followed the pop star and a few of her friends to an “after party” after meeting them at a nightclub. At the end of an evening of drinking and cocaine, she had accompanied Saad Lamjarred to his hotel on the Champs Élysées.
They kissed, but when he got more active, she tried to stop him, she told investigators. Then he is said to have beaten and raped her.
She had fled the room and was picked up by hotel staff, who described a young woman as “terrorized” and in tears. The same employees had stopped the suspected drunk man who was stalking them.
Saad Lamjarred claims to have only defended himself when Laura P. suddenly attacked him while kissing and denies any intrusion. He only sued her to avoid a “scandal” because he was well known.
The singer, revered in Morocco and famous in the Arab world, was at a concert in Paris at the Palais des Congrès.
Jailed in the process, he was released under an electronic bracelet in 2017 – before being briefly arrested again in 2018 on charges of raping another young woman in Saint-Tropez (Var).
Saad Lamjarred was also involved in rapes in Casablanca and New York under similar circumstances.
His trial in Paris is scheduled for Friday.