Indicted on Saturday for rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor, the former French Olympic swimming champion Yannick Agnel “Recognizes the materiality of the alleged facts”, declared Monday, December 13 the prosecutor of the Republic of Mulhouse, Edwige Roux-Morizot, during a press conference.
Yannick Agnel said he did not have “The feeling that there (had) been constraint”, clarified during a press conference Edwige Roux-Morizot. “Regarding the acts of rape, for some of them he has a problem of memories”, even though these memories might “Very well then come back to the course of the judicial information”, also added the magistrate. “If the facts constitute rape or sexual assault, it is because there is a significant age difference” between the victim, Naome Horter, the daughter of Lionel Horter, then Agnel’s trainer, 13 years old at the material time in 2016, and the swimmer, then 24 years old, specified the magistrate.
Mme Roux-Morizot recalled that the prosecution had requested the provisional detention of Yannick Agnel, explaining that it was mainly to avoid any pressure on the victim. But the judge of freedoms and detention did not follow these requisitions and placed the former champion under judicial control.
Numerous obligations
This comes with many obligations, continued the prosecutor: Yannick Agnel is thus prohibited from leaving the inner suburbs of Paris, from going to Mulhouse, unless convened by a court, from entering into contact with the family of the victim, he will have to hand over his passport to justice and he is prohibited from contacting his agent, Sophie Kamoun.
The 29-year-old former athlete, converted into e-sport and consultant in various media, is the subject of a complaint filed by Naome Horter last summer. Arrested Thursday at his Parisian home, he spent forty-eight hours in police custody in Mulhouse before being brought before an examining magistrate who indicted him on Saturday. Yannick Agnel has one of the finest records in French swimming: he was double Olympic champion in London in 2012 in the 200-meter freestyle and the 4 x 100-meter relay, before being crowned world champion in these two disciplines in 2013.