Booba was tried for an insulting message against Zineb El Rhazoui. GABRIEL BOUYS
The rapper will have to pay 5,000 euros in damages for having insulted the former journalist of Charlie Hebdo.
The famous rapper Booba was sentenced Tuesday by the criminal court of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) to a fine of 5,000 euros for having insulted the former journalist of Charlie Hebdo Zineb El Rhazoui. He will also have to pay him 5,000 euros in damages.
Booba, 46, was on trial for a message posted in November 2019 on Instagram where he wrote against Zineb El Rhazoui: “Let’s rot the life out of this big stinky shit.”
This message followed comments made by the journalist on CNews, where she had declared, about urban violence that occurred in Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines): “The police need to fire live ammunition in these cases.”
Both parties were absent at the hearing in March and at the deliberations delivered on Tuesday. “The court took the measure of this case by bringing the fine and the damages to fairer proportions”, reacted to AFP the rapper’s lawyer, Me Yann Le Bras. Contacted, the lawyer for the civil party, Me Thibault de Montbrial, could not be reached immediately.
The prosecution had requested a fine of 10,000 euros against the rapper from Boulogne-Billancourt, castigating a “scatological overflow” where the humor was “hardly noticeable”. An opinion followed by the court, which did not retain “the humorous character” of these words. “These contentious remarks do not contribute to the debate of general interest”also explained the president of the 14th chamber.
Booba, Elie Yaffa of his real name, had been sentenced in October 2018 to eighteen months in prison suspended for a famous fight with his rival Kaaris at Orly airport.