Rabat – Moroccan pop star Saad Lamjarred is appearing again before a French court on Monday, facing a new rape charge connected to an incident from 2018.
The singer is accused of raping a waitress in a bar near Saint-Tropez. Lamjarred denies the accusation. A verdict is expected on Thursday.
The trial will open at 2 p.m. at the Draguignan Criminal Court in southern France. Lamjarred remains free while the trial is underway.
The lawyer of the alleged victim, Dominique Lardans, said his client will request a closed hearing. “A night of horror, seven years of waiting, suffering, and patience. She awaits recognition that she is a victim,” he stated.
According to her testimony, the woman was working as a waitress in Saint-Tropez in August 2018 when she met Lamjarred at a nightclub. She said she did not know he was a famous singer, although she later learned he had millions of followers online. She agreed to join him for a drink at his hotel.
She told investigators that Lamjarred took her straight to his room, tried to kiss her, and then forced her onto the bed, stripped her, and raped her. Lamjarred insists the encounter was consensual.
Lamjarred has been linked to several other sexual assault cases over the years. He was accused of rape in 2010 in the United States, but the charges were dropped after a settlement with the alleged victim. Later in 2017, he was charged again after a French-Moroccan woman said he assaulted and beat her in Casablanca in 2015.
And in 2023, he was sentenced in France to six years in prison for raping and beating a young woman in a Paris hotel in 2016. He has appealed that ruling and continues to maintain his innocence, though he admitted during that trial that he hit the woman forcefully after she allegedly scratched him while they were kissing.
