Saad Lamjarred sentenced to ten years in prison in French appeal over rape charge
Créteil court in France has sentenced Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred to ten years in prison on appeal after he was convicted of aggravated rape of a woman in a Paris hotel room in 2016.
Saad Lamjarred: ten years in prison on appeal at Créteil court
The Criminal Court in Créteil, near Paris, has sentenced Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred to ten years in prison in the appeal phase of an aggravated rape case dating back to 2016. According to sources at Hespress Arabic, the ruling was issued with an immediate arrest warrant.
Lamjarred, 41 years old, had been given a six-year prison sentence in an initial ruling at Paris Criminal Court in 2023, whilst the public prosecutor called for eight years at the appeal stage. The singer has consistently denied all charges against him.
The case centres on a victim identified as "Laura B.", who was in her twenties when she met Lamjarred in a nightclub in Paris in 2016. According to public prosecutor allegations, Laura was raped later that night in a hotel room. The appeal hearing in Créteil took place behind closed doors, following a postponement that had occurred in June 2025 to allow for additional investigations.
Daoud Chami, one of Laura B.'s lawyers, told AFP that the ruling reflects the singer's behaviour towards the complainant during the course of legal proceedings. He added: "The systematic challenging of her account, as well as attacks directed against investigators and experts, appeared to have a negative effect on the jury."
Lamjarred's lawyer, Marie Bourgobert, announced that the defence would appeal the ruling before the French Court of Cassation.
The Moroccan singer's file involves multiple cases; the Criminal Court in Var in Draguignan, southern France, sentenced him to five years in prison in May, on a charge of raping a woman near Saint-Tropez in 2018, a ruling which he also appealed.
In this same context, four people were convicted in April on the basis of an attempted extortion targeting Lamjarred, in which they demanded three million euros in exchange for withdrawing the complaint and preventing the complainant from giving testimony. Laura B. was acquitted in that case, whilst her mother and a lawyer, an influencer and two other individuals received suspended sentences.
Lamjarred had previously faced charges in Morocco in 2015 and in the United States in 2010, where the American case was closed following a financial settlement with the complainant. The singer has a broad presence on social media platforms, with more than 15 million followers on Instagram and approximately 16 million subscribers on YouTube.
Source: Hespress