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Has not forgotten how to smile: The defendant Arafat Abou-Chaker at the start of the trial in August, with the defense lawyers sitting in front of him
Photo: Pool / Getty Images
Arafat Abou-Chaker smiles.
He shows no signs of tension.
On the contrary.
He looks satisfied and quite relaxed.
The fact that the Berlin clan chief and not Bushido is sitting in the dock in room 500 of the Berlin Regional Court could almost be forgotten this Monday.
The lawyers of Arafat Abou-Chaker and three of his brothers believe they can convict Bushido of lying in court.
It's about a raid on September 22nd in Kleinmachnow, Brandenburg.
The clan boss and the rapper own a joint property in Kleinmachnow.
Arafat Abou-Chaker lives in a villa there, Bushido's villa next door is empty.
The raid involved allegations of tax evasion.
In hall 500 it goes before 38.
The large criminal chamber actually deals with completely different allegations.
Arafat Abou-Chaker, 44, has been charged with attempted severe predatory extortion, dangerous bodily harm, coercion, deprivation of liberty and other allegations.
He is supposed to be Bushido in January 2018
Locked up, insulted and attacked with a plastic bottle and a chair because he should not have accepted that Bushido broke away from him on business.
Cooperation or forced marriage?
Anis Ferchichi alias Bushido, 42, is a joint plaintiff and the most important witness in the trial.
In court he has already portrayed the years of working with Abou-Chaker as a forced marriage.
He was forced to share with Abou-Chaker all income from his music career.
Abou-Chaker earned at least nine million euros from him over the years.
Bushido began to unpack.
In several interrogations with the police and the public prosecutor's office, he spoke about the alleged business practices of the clan.
Bushido has since been under police protection - and Abou-Chaker in the focus of the investigative authorities.
Arafat Abou-Chaker will not have been particularly pleased when the tax investigators accompanied by the LKA rang his doorbell at around 6 a.m. almost three weeks ago.
About an hour later, Bushido's lawyer, Steffen Tzschoppe, was also at the property.
Reporters from "Bild" and SPIEGEL TV were also there.
Arafat Abou-Chaker sensed a plot.
This has little to do with the actual allegations against Abou-Chaker.
But on Monday the defense succeeded in sowing doubts about the credibility of the rapper's statements in connection with the raid.
As a witness, Anis Ferchichi has an obligation of truth.
However, according to the defense, he lied in court.
Lie or truth?
Ferchichi had portrayed it in the process that he learned about the search "from the press" on the morning of September 22nd.
He then sent his lawyer a WhatsApp message and asked him to be a witness when the investigators inspected his own villa.
According to his own statements, the lawyer was on site in Kleinmachnow shortly after 7 a.m.
Defender Toralf Nöding calls it "an obvious lie" that Ferchichi claims to have found out about the raid from the media.
According to the defense, the first reports via Twitter did not appear until 7.46 a.m.
Abou-Chaker's lawyers have now applied to summon the "Bild" employee as a witness after Ferchichi announced his friendship with the journalist during the trial.
The defense assumes the rapper communicated with him before 7 a.m.
A minor matter, one might think.
When it comes to Abou-Chaker, if it weren't for the credibility of Ferchichi's statements.
Accordingly, the defense attorneys search meticulously for inaccuracies and inconsistencies in his statements.
The lawyers have already taken apart his biography.
The rapper then presented the book as a kind of image cultivation of the "fictional character" Bushido - and not as an authentic life confession from him, Anis Ferchichi.
The judges will now decide on the applications of the defense.
She had previously applied for the main hearing to be suspended because tax investigators had taken documents with them during the search in Kleinmachnow and photographed handwritten notes that Abou-Chaker is said to have made for his defense.
His lawyers see this as a so-called procedural obstacle that endangers a fair trial.
The main hearing is due to resume on October 26th.
Ferchichi may then be able to continue his actual statement about his time with Arafat Abou-Chaker.
Or like the presiding judge Martin
Mrosk
says: "Mr. Ferchichi, maybe we will then be able to continue with you."
"No problem," says Ferchichi and smiles.
Then he is led out of the hall under police protection.
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