The Moroccan ex-butler of the Qatari boss of PSG Nasser Al-Khelaïfi filed a complaint against X on June 28, for extortion and witness tampering in particular, denouncing the conditions in which the lobbyist Tayeb Benabderrahmane, who claims to have been sequestered in Qatar , has been freed. Hicham Karmoussi “wishes in particular to denounce the conditions under which he signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at allowing the release of Tayeb Benabderrahmane, then detained in Qatar”, declared his lawyer, Me Antoine Ory, in a press release sent to AFP .
The complaint of Hicham Karmoussi, who worked for Mr. Al-Khelaïfi for twenty years before being dismissed in the summer of 2020, was also filed for complicity in attempted kidnapping, corruption of a public official, association of criminals, invasion of privacy, automated data processing and secrecy of correspondence. The facts denounced extend from January to July 2020.
“What we seem to forget in this pathetic smear campaign is that Nasser Al-Khelaifi is a victim in this affair, recalls a spokesperson for the Qatari leader, in a statement sent to Le Figaro. No media interview, desperate briefing or unfounded legal complaint will change the rule of law or the outcome of the case, which we eagerly await. The question you have to ask yourself is, why suddenly file this new lawsuit, after all these years? They changed lawyers more often than they changed stories and lies. This is the ultimate media manipulation. We have total and absolute confidence in the French judicial system”.
Since January 2023, two investigating judges have been investigating the accusations of arbitrary arrest and kidnapping made by the Franco-Algerian lobbyist. The latter claims to have been arrested in January 2020 in Qatar, then kidnapped for six months, in particular because he allegedly held potentially compromising documents for Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, says NAK. He says he was then placed under house arrest – a version disputed by NAK’s entourage – then authorized to leave Qatar in November 2020, after signing a confidentiality protocol in which he undertook not to disclose these documents. Protocol which he seeks to have annulled.
But he himself was indicted at the end of September in a separate judicial investigation, in particular for complicity in misappropriation of the purpose of a file. In police custody, he said that Hicham Karmoussi had asked him in 2018 to put in a safe place a mobile phone, a hard drive and a USB key containing data relating to Nasser Al-Khelaïfi. The former butler had assured Mediapart in November that he had helped to “clean” NAK’s Paris apartment and kept certain things in his possession, which he should have returned in exchange for the release of Tayeb Benabderrahmane, assures a source close to the file.
Other people who participated in the release of the lobbyist are of interest to justice: the mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris Rachida Dati – who was close to Mr. Benabderrahmane -, his then lawyer Olivier Pardo and those of NAK Francis Szpiner and Renaud Semerdjian . Their cabinets and this town hall were searched on June 6. Hicham Karmoussi also filed a complaint in March against NAK, in particular for concealed work and moral harassment.
