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Bushido on one of the trial days at the end of August
Photo: AFP
Bushido cannot really explain it to the court.
The rapper tries, but whether he succeeded remains questionable.
Why has Anis Ferchichi, alias Bushido, not parted with Arafat Abou-Chaker over the years, but on the contrary, got more involved with the Berlin clan boss?
The court keeps asking, first the presiding judge, then the associate judge.
At some point Bushido speaks of forced marriage.
His relationship with Abou-Chaker was like a forced marriage.
Since he saw no way out, at some point he tried to come to terms with it.
The hearing in room 500 of the Berlin Regional Court begins this Monday with a kind of book review.
After the defense, Bushido's biography
lying on the tables, he too had "browsed a bit", says the presiding judge Martin Mrosk to Bushido.
The book is from 2008. And what the judge read there apparently astonished him.
One chapter is dedicated to Arafat Abou-Chaker, says Mrosk.
He names the title, "Arafat the Great", and summarizes it: "In the chapter, Mr. Abou-Chaker is praised for the green clover."
The judge asks how this fits in with Bushido's previous stories in court.
Cooperation "not voluntary"
"I was uncomfortable admitting how the collaboration really came about," says Bushido.
He kept the fact that he had to share Arafat Abou-Chaker with 30 percent of all income from 2004 for almost 15 years.
Nobody knew that the cooperation was not voluntary, but forced.
He paid "because I had to, I didn't want to," he says.
"And not voluntarily."
Abou-Chaker didn't have to threaten.
It was also so clear to him that there would have been more than just "warning letters" if he hadn't paid, says Bushido.
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Bushido testified last week that his biography should serve his image as a gangsta rapper and be less true.
The content of the book is "in many parts a creative representation that fit the gangsta rapper Bushido image".
Some had been "grossly exaggerated", others "on purpose a little understated".
Arafat Abou-Chaker's defense attorney, Hansgeorg Birkhoff, asked: "Now you're not sitting here as Bushido, but as Mr. Ferchichi. So what's wrong in this book?"
Anis Ferchichis provided an original answer.
The book is the result of a collaboration between "Bushido, Anis Ferchichi, the ghostwriter and the publisher," he said.
Sounds like: It's a mixture of truth and fiction.
Protection through the "back"
On this Monday he has to explain the chapter with the adulation about Abou-Chaker to the judge.
It is part of the gangsta rapper cliché to demonstrate strength, says Bushido.
This also includes protection by a so-called back.
Backs are called the protectors of a rapper in the scene.
Accordingly, it served the image cultivation to present oneself externally as part of a group.
Bushido's group was the Abou Chaker clan.
He himself speaks of the "mafia principle" that served his image.
That is why he "portrayed his relationship with Abou-Chaker in the book as" exclusively positive ".
The associate judge asks: "And how did you feel?"
“I perceived the period from 2010 onwards as very unfree,” says Bushido.
Arafat Abou-Chaker had "pushed himself more and more to the fore".
Around 2010 there was "the first break" in their relationship.
It was about the movie "Times are changing you".
In the film Bushido plays himself, the actor Moritz Bleibtreu plays Arafat Abou-Chaker.
Abou-Chaker was upset that he had not been asked beforehand.
He almost burst the film and asked for money.
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Bushido, Abou-Chaker at the premiere of the film "Times Change You" in Berlin (2010)
Photo: Jens Kalaene / DPA
In 2010 there should have been a break in the relationship between Bushido and Abou-Chaker.
Why did he then, in December 2010, issue Arafat Abou-Chaker a general power of attorney for the joint purchase of a former Russian barracks in Rüdersdorf, Brandenburg?
"How can that be?" Asks the judge.
He thought, says Bushido, that it was a lucrative business "from which I can benefit".
It sounded "very tempting".
The explanation is not enough for the judge.
She mentions the villas of Abou-Chaker and Bushido in Kleinmachnow.
In 2011 the two decided to live there villa after villa.
"I don't understand how you can do that when the relationship is bad," says the judge.
Bushido tries to come up with an explanation: "If you have been forcibly married, then you want to make the situation worth living at some point."
He also says he assumed "that I will never get out of this relationship".
That's why he wanted to come to terms.
A contradicting picture
He later says that at the time he asked his girlfriend at the time and now wife, Anna-Maria, if she could imagine living in the immediate vicinity with Abou-Chaker.
She agreed.
"She was also incredibly good friends with Arafat," he says.
The relationship with Abou-Chaker would have relaxed a little again through the joint plans.
"We also went on vacation together," says Bushido.
"I liked that too."
It's a contradicting picture that he paints.
On this day Bushido does not talk freely about his life with Abou-Chaker, but answers questions from the court, the public prosecutor and the defense about what he has described so far in the process.
Those involved in the process jump from one topic to the next and back again.
Anis Ferchichi aka Bushido jumps with them.
He answers spontaneously, saying when he remembers and when not.
He can seldom be tied to precise numbers and dates.
And when the defense confronts him that a testimony in court does not match his testimony to the police, he remains relaxed.
Bushido is an entertaining witness, he is not a simple witness.
According to the indictment, Bushido never moved into the villa next to Abou-Chaker in Kleinmachnow with his wife.
Anna Maria was the one who finally said: "That doesn't work."
She was apparently also the driving force behind Bushido's separation from Abou-Chaker.
He has not yet told about it in the process.
Arafat Abou-Chaker is said to have threatened, imprisoned and injured Bushido in the course of the business separation.
The clan chief is charged with threats, coercion, attempted severe predatory blackmail and deprivation of liberty, among other things.
Bushido is supposed to continue his testimony on Wednesday.
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According to the indictment, Bushido never moved into the villa next to Abou-Chaker in Kleinmachnow with his wife.
Anna Maria was the one who finally said: "That doesn't work."
She was apparently also the driving force behind Bushido's separation from Abou-Chaker.
He has not yet told about it in the process.
Arafat Abou-Chaker is said to have threatened, imprisoned and injured Bushido in the course of the business separation.
The clan chief is charged with threats, coercion, attempted severe predatory blackmail and deprivation of liberty, among other things.
Bushido is supposed to continue his testimony on Wednesday.
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