“I have nothing to do with extortion. » On the evening of Saturday September 17, after several days in police custody in Nanterre, Mathias Pogba denied en bloc to the two investigating judges, during his first appearance interrogation.
While the magistrates are preparing to indict him on the counts of “extortion in an organized gang” and “participation in a criminal association with a view to preparing a crime”, he repeats that he was not present, on the night of March 19 to 20, in this apartment in Seine-et-Marne where the start of the affair was played out.
Mathias has an alibi. He was in a hotel room in La Défense (Hauts-de-Seine), miles from where his brother, Paul, one of the stars of the French football team and Juventus Turin, was robbed by two hooded and armed men, after being brought there by several childhood friends, four of whom were also indicted.
The investigators suspect in particular Roushdane K., a relative of Mathias Pogba, of having been in the maneuver. The robbers ordered Paul Pogba to pay 13 million euros, including 3 million euros in cash. A sum demanded in return for the alleged protection that the two hooded men would have provided to the French international for years.
Turin getaway
While in police custody and before the investigating judges, Mathias Pogba gave his version of the facts. He claimed to have learned that an incident had taken place that night much later, on July 13. The story was told to him, he said, by three defendants, Roushdane K., Machikour K., Boubacar C., and with a different story. The defendants told him that they had been themselves “to rob” and be victims, in the same way as Paul Pogba, who would have committed under threat, that evening, to “give a certain amount” to the two hooded men.
According to Mathias Pogba, it is for “have the version” of his brother Paul ” face to face “ that he would have gone to Turin, on July 14, with the four other defendants, at the Juventus training center. But “he never came down. After five hours of waiting, sighed Mathias. It is after this Turin escapade of the five defendants that Paul Pogba will file a complaint, in Italy, on July 16. The Paris prosecutor’s office then opened an investigation in August.
In front of the investigating magistrates and the police, Mathias Pogba unfolded his version of the case, which has several twists and turns after the Turin episode. Himself would have in turn “broke” on July 30, in the presence of two defendants, in Roissy-en-Brie, by several men “dressed in black and hooded”. “Hands up, hands up. Tell your brother to find a solution”, One of the robbers would then have told him, asking him to intercede with Paul, so that the latter pays the promised sum. Mathias would then have “didn’t have the reflex to call the police”.
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