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Bushido as a witness in court (archive): A rapper unpacks
Photo:
STR / AFP
At some point it breaks out of Bushido.
Tears well up in his eyes, his voice threatens to break.
"My wife is the reason why I got my fucking courage together at some point," he shouts.
It is thanks to her that he was able to free himself from the forced marriage with the Berlin clan chief Arafat Abou-Chaker.
Anis Ferchichi alias Bushido has been trying all day to address the doubts that the defense sows with their questions, against the doubts that he himself has sown with his book.
"Bushido" is the name of the book called biography and yet supposed to be fiction, as Ferchichi tried to explain on Wednesday with increasing exhaustion hour after hour as the most important witness in the trial against Abou-Chaker before the Berlin district court.
What is poetry, what is truth?
It's all about this.
The presiding judge and defense of Arafat Abou-Chaker and his three brothers quote passages from his book.
Passages that deal with Arafat Abou-Chaker, also with the power and violence of Bushido.
Here is a fight, there is a threat.
How was it really?
It's always the same question.
"It fit the gangster image
Some things were actually like it was written there, others were exaggeration, some were fiction, says Anis Ferchichi.
Then he tells how it should really have been.
"In the book you portray it differently," says defense attorney Michael Martens.
It is a sentence that Ferchichi gets to hear several times on that day in variations.
Here in court he is telling the truth, Ferchichi protests again and again.
For example the thing about working with Abou-Chaker.
In the book she is presented as voluntary, "They are like brothers," sums up defense attorney Toralf Nöding.
"It fit the gangster image," explains Bushido.
For "the public image" it was better to claim that he had volunteered with "these people".
The book served to cultivate his image as a gangsta rapper.
A forced marriage would have been less fitting into the picture.
Yes, the name Abou-Chaker was definitely a career move for him, he admits.
Or as lawyer Nöding puts it: "That really pushed your reputation."
Bushido does not contradict.
"I don't really believe you about the forced cooperation," says Nöding at some point.
If it had been so, he would have spoken to someone he trusted about it over the years.
Ferchichi says he never told anyone the truth because he had no real friends to confide in.
"It's a shame", says Nöding, then nobody can testify to his version.
"It's even worse that I didn't have any friends," says Bushido.
However, Nöding insists that there is no way to check his version.
"But that's the truth," says Ferchichi, with difficulty maintaining his composure.
"I was ashamed to my death that it was claimed for over ten years that I was the property of Arafat Abou-Chaker - and that is still true."
The defense does not give up, further quoted from the book, also from an interview that Bushido once gave.
It's about two slaps that Bushido is said to have given his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend.
"Now you say that is not true," says defense attorney Horst Eitner: "What should I believe now?"
"I speak as Bushido there," explains Ferchichi.
"It made sense to me on a business level."
Yes, "the lady gave it", yes, "I loved her very much", yes, "she broke my heart".
But that he hit her new boyfriend, "that was more of my wishful thinking".
"Here I am sitting in front of you as a private person"
Bushido is "a fictional character".
And the truth of Bushido is not identical with the truth of Anis Ferchichi.
"Here I am sitting in front of you as a private person. If I had stood there in court, I would have told the truth."
The truthfulness of his statements as Bushido could not be inferred from the credibility of his statements as Ferchichi in court.
"It's a bit like comparing apples and pears."
Every day he experiences that the separation between the fictional character Bushido and the person Anis Ferchichi is difficult.
"Today I still walk around with prejudices that I am homophobic, misogynistic and anti-Semitic," he says.
"I've never been homophobic or misogynistic in my life. And I don't tell people what to believe."
Defense attorney Hansgeorg Birkhoff asks a piece of the really true truth of Anis Ferchichi.
It is true that Ferchichi was married to Anna-Maria before his wedding.
"With whom?" Asks Birkhoff.
"I don't know," says Bushido and laughs.
"I entered into a marriage of convenience."
Apparently Arafat Abou-Chaker helped him with disputes with the woman's family at the time.
"My client intervened?" Asks Birkhoff.
"Yes," says Ferchichi.
Then Birkhoff addressed the situation in December 2014, when Ferchichi's wife temporarily moved out under police escort.
"Is it possible," asks the defense attorney, "that you hit your wife?"
"Yes," says Ferchichi.
"I have a wife and five children"
Defense attorney Martens sums up the morning: He, Ferchichi, has "successfully played a false picture of reality" to people close to him for years.
Why should one believe him now that he is telling the truth here in court?
He would phrase it differently, says Ferchichi.
"All I have managed to do is not talk about it for 16 years" that working with Abou-Chaker was a kind of forced marriage.
He himself is well aware of the contradictions in his life.
For example, he, of all people, who, as he says, "fuck the LKA, fuck the BKA, fuck the police", is now receiving personal protection from the police.
"And then they sat on the sofa at my house," he says with an emphasis that sounds as if he couldn't believe it himself, "and said: 'Take care: We'll take care of your wife and children now on.'"
He continues talking without a point or a comma.
In December 2014 he left his wife for Abou-Chaker, "yes, I hit her too", in August 2017 there was another argument with Anna-Maria.
“So I said to myself: 'No, I won't let my wife down anymore.'” Instead, he decided to part with Abou-Chaker.
It is true that he has a criminal record.
He lists tax evasion, fraud, coercion and abuse.
"I am, God knows, the last person who can say I have obeyed the law all my life."
But here in court he is telling the truth.
It is the moment when he begins to cry and his voice breaks.
"I no longer have a mother, I no longer have a father. I have a wife and five children", they are the only things that count in his life.
"I always stood there alone," he says.
Without brothers, without friends.
And then he says the sentence about his wife.
"My wife is the reason why at some point I got my fucking courage together."
Because of her, he was finally able to break away from Abou-Chaker.
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