Artist Saad Al-Mojared has been appearing since Monday, May 11th, before the criminal court in the city of Dragignan, in the southeastern French city, as part of a new trial on rape charges dating back to 2018.
The court decided to hold the sessions behind closed doors at the request of the plaintiff, in a move aimed at protecting the privacy of the parties, according to French media.
Meeting in a nightclub and ending in court
The facts of the case stem from a complaint filed by a young French woman who worked as a waitress at a nightclub in 2018, where she reported that she met Al-Majrid during an evening, before accompanying him to the hotel where the alleged assault took place.
The plaintiff asserts that she was subjected to violence, while Al-Majard categorically denies the accusation, stressing that the relationship was consensual.
The French press quoted the testimony of the plaintiff's friend, who said she found her in a state of "shock" with "swelling in the lips", which the public prosecutor relied on to reopen the file.
The French authorities arrested Saad Lamjared on August 26, 2018, following the complaint filed against him, before he was placed in custody, and then released under judicial control in exchange for financial bail and prevented from leaving French territory.
The case was later amended after French authorities dropped some rape-related charges while keeping him on charges of sexual assault and violence.
French judicial sources said that the court is expected to issue its verdict in this case next Friday, which makes this week decisive in the path of the legal abstract, especially since the verdict may directly affect his life and artistic future.
Complex judicial context... And wide media attention
This trial comes as part of a series of cases that Al-Majar has faced over the past years, most notably the 2023 sentence of six years in prison in a rape case dating back to 2016, before his appeal was accepted and his sessions were later postponed due to legal prosecutions related to the plaintiff and her relatives.
He was also charged in the United States in 2010 and in Morocco in 2015, making his legal case one of the most controversial in the Arab artistic community.
The file enjoys a great following from the media, in addition to wide attention from the public, as it is one of the most prominent artistic names in the Arab world during the last decade.
Reactions vary between those who believe that the artist is being "systematically targeted" and those who believe that the multitude of issues associated with him calls for a reconsideration of his career and behavior.