Almost indisputable holder in the French rugby team, Mohamed Haouas, 27, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison suspended for his involvement in burglaries eight years ago.
Initially scheduled for January 2021, postponed several times, the trial before the Montpellier Criminal Court of Mohamed Haouas, 27, will deprive the player of the opening match of the Six Nations Tournament with the Blues this Sunday against Italy. The player was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence on Friday for his involvement in burglaries eight years ago. A difficult past that he has finally settled.
“It is an exemplary course for young people, and I take it into account. He wants to clear his debt, close this chapter”, had recognized the prosecutor, asking “18 months in prison with a suspended sentence and a 15,000 euro fine “against the pillar of the France and Montpellier team. An indictment followed to the letter by the court.
“There are things they blame me for that I didn’t do, but that’s better than prison, let’s say,” reacted the player after the deliberation. “He has to forget, draw a line, we won’t appeal, that’s obvious”, commented his lawyer, Me Marc Gallix, “and we will only talk about the rugby player”. The co-defendant of Mohamed Haouas, who appeared detained, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. A third man, a minor at the time, was referred to a juvenile judge.
Navy blue hooded jacket, pants and black surgical mask, the Montpellier colossus (1.85 m for 125 kg) arrived with his wife and the manager of the Hérault club, the former coach of the Blues Philippe Saint-André.
Arrested in June 2014 and detained for four days as part of the investigation into a series of burglaries of tobacco shops in Montpellier between February and April of that year, the international was to answer for “thefts in meetings with breaking and entering” and of the “receiving” of a stolen car.
His DNA had been found on the rubber band of a headlamp abandoned by the burglars during one of the thefts. During the investigation, Mohamed Haouas had however always denied the facts, only acknowledging that he had participated in the transport of some of the boxes of cigarettes stolen.
“+ Momo +, tell them to hurry up, we have training at 2:00 p.m.”, launched Saint-André before the opening of the hearing, to try to cheer up his player.
At the helm, Mohamed Haouas preferred to remain silent on the facts
At the helm, Mohamed Haouas preferred to remain silent on the facts, to “let his lawyer speak”. But he answered personality questions, explaining that he is married, has two children, a four-year-old son and a four-month-old daughter, and earns 15,000 euros a month as a professional rugby player.
Conceding “youthful mistakes”, he returned to his childhood in the sensitive district of Petit Bard in Montpellier, where he had arrived with his parents, from the North: “Either you stay or you escape. (. ..) They tested me, I had neither a big brother nor a father, I had to defend myself”.
“We ate at Coluche (Editor’s note: les Restos du cœur), we lived in hostels, hotels, it was a bit complicated”, recalled the player, still capable of bloodshed, like this direct shot at a Scot during the 2020 Tournament or this fight with a training partner in Montpellier in 2018.
Today, he is “proud” of the man he has become: “I struggled in life, I got over it, I’m proud to have built a family, a house”, he said. – he insisted, questioned by his lawyer, Me Marc Gallix. And on the rugby side, it is also “a pride” to wear the blue jersey, for him, the Franco-Algerian kid.
“I’m the mascot in the locker room, I’m always in a good mood, even when things are not going well, I don’t show it”, explains the one whom his partners have nicknamed “Kubiac”, this gluttonous giant of a TV series from the 1990s.
Coming to rugby late, at 15, the former taekwondo follower is now trying to attract other young people to his sport: “If they need clothes, crampons, I pay for them, I wish I had known that.”
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