CNN
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Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has been implicated in a “kidnapping and torture” investigation in France, the Paris prosecutor’s workplace confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.
This follows allegations that Al-Khelaifi was concerned within the switch of “probably compromising” paperwork from a French-Algerian citizen, Tayeb Benabderrahmane, who claims to have been tortured in Qatari custody in 2020, based on a grievance submitted by Benabderrahmane’s attorneys to French authorities.
“On January 19, the Paris prosecutor’s workplace opened a preliminary investigation into acts of kidnapping; sequestration with torture and acts of barbarism in an organized gang; extortion in an organized gang; threats and acts of intimidation and affiliation with criminals. This adopted the receipt of two complaints with civil motion concerning Mr Benabderrahmane,” the prosecutor’s workplace informed CNN however didn’t title Al-Khelaifi.
The Paris prosecutor’s workplace confirmed to CNN Wednesday that three investigating judges have been assigned to the case. This sometimes denotes a development from the preliminary investigation.
The grievance from Benabderrahmane’s attorneys doesn’t specify what the alleged paperwork are, however claims that “they had been prone to be compromising for sure high-level individuals in Qatar, even foreigners.”
Al-Khelaifi, who’s a Qatari citizen, denies any wrongdoing. On Wednesday, his consultant directed CNN to an announcement which they mentioned “Al-Khelaifi issued to L’Equipe in November, 2022.”
“You’re speaking about skilled criminals,” Al-Khelaifi mentioned. “They’ve modified their attorneys extra instances than they’ve modified their tales and their lies. It’s the final media manipulation.
“I’m simply amazed so many individuals have taken their lies and contradictions as credible – however that’s the media world we’re in in the present day. Justice will run its course – I don’t have time to speak about petty skilled criminals.”
Legal professionals representing Benabderrahmane, Romain Ruiz and Gabriel Vejnar, informed CNN on Wednesday: “Mr. Tayeb Benabderrahmane welcomes the opening of this investigation by the French justice system and can naturally proceed to defend his rights as he has accomplished within the different proceedings he has initiated in an effort to set up the critically detrimental nature of the therapy he has been subjected to by the Qatari authorities in addition to by its representatives in France and overseas.
“Mr. Benabderrahmane needs to emphasise that, opposite to what’s typically asserted, he has by no means been implicated in extortion or blackmail in opposition to Nasser Al-Khelaifi,” Ruiz and Vejnar added.