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Rapper Bushido (archive): How exactly did he get out of the contract with Aggro Berlin at the time?
Photo: imago images / Olaf Wagner
The Berlin public prosecutor's office is investigating Bushido and clan chief Arafat Abou-Chaker on charges of serious predatory extortion.
This was announced by the presiding judge of the 38th Large Criminal Chamber of the Berlin Regional Court in the trial against Abou-Chaker and three of his brothers.
The preliminary investigation goes back to an advertisement by the founders of the music label Aggro Berlin on March 16.
According to SPIEGEL information, the announcement by Aggro founders Jens Ihlenfeldt ("Spaiche"), Eric Remberg ("Specter") and Halil Efe is only directed against Anis Ferchichi, alias Bushido.
Since April 1, 2021, in addition to Bushido, the public prosecutor's office has also been accused of Arafat Abou-Chaker.
Aggro Berlin confirmed to SPIEGEL that the allegation was about an event 17 years ago.
Severe predatory extortion only expires after 20 years.
Bushido was still under contract with Aggro Berlin at the time.
One day in May 2004, Arafat Abou-Chaker made sure that the contract with Aggro Berlin was terminated at Bushido’s request.
How Abou-Chaker took care of it, there are different representations.
hit in the face
Aggro Berlin portrays it in such a way that Bushido, Arafat Abou-Chaker and about six other men came into the studio at the time.
One of the men is said to have carried "a machete-like knife" with him.
Arafat Abou-Chaker is said to have initially forced "Specter" to sign the dissolution agreement under threat of violence.
Then Halil Efe was added, who is said to have received a slap in the face.
Efe then also signed the contract, albeit not with his name, but with "hayir", the Turkish word for "no".
Then "Spaiche" appeared and was forced to sign under threat of violence.
This version of Aggro Berlin emerges from documents that are available to SPIEGEL.
Bushido denies the allegation. "Everything is total bullshit," he said in August 2020 in the current trial against Abou-Chaker in court. Aggro Berlin's portrayal that he and Arafat Abou-Chaker were in the studio with six people and a machete was wrong. They were only there in pairs and without a machete: "Arafat and I are all alone."
Just as Bushido presented it as a witness and co-plaintiff in the trial, Abou-Chaker only had to emphatically demand the signature, then "Specter" signed the annulment contract. Then Efe came into the studio. Abou-Chaker slapped him and grabbed his ear, then Efe also signed. Most recently, »Spaiche« appeared in the studio. After all, he too signed the contract. The end with Aggro Berlin was also the beginning of the allegedly forced collaboration between Bushido and Arafat Abou-Chaker.
"It's always about business interests," commented Arafat Abou-Chaker's defense lawyer, Hansgeorg Birkhoff, on Wednesday on the sidelines of the trial on the new accusation against his client: "I'll take a look at it and will saw it up." Bushido's lawyer, Steffen Tzschoppe, did not want to comment at first. Bushido himself is currently on vacation after the end of his testimony in the Abou Chaker trial.