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Accused Abou-Chaker in the Berlin district court (archive)
Photo: Olaf Wagner / imago images / Olaf Wagner
Ashraf Rammo does not want to have anything to do with the separation dispute between Arafat Abou-Chaker and Bushido. It is obvious. He did not interfere in their affair, he never found out details or he no longer remembers them. This is how he has presented it in court so far. He remains vague, is diplomatic. It looks like Rammo doesn't want to mess with one side or the other. On this Monday, however, the last day of his testimony as a witness, there is still a lot to be elicited from him - which is related, among other things, to a fortune and an illegal record.
On Wednesday, Chief Public Prosecutor Petra Leister asked the witness about Bushido's song "Mephisto", a musical settlement with Arafat Abou-Chaker. Bushido depicts his former partner as a devil without naming him. The song was released in September 2018, Rammo was Bushido's manager at the time. He knew the song, but not the lyrics, Rammo gave himself unsuspecting in court. The prosecutor investigated. What Rammo thinks of the song. She did not get a clear answer. “I asked him: 'Why are you doing it like a fable? Why don't you call things by their names? 'Said Rammo.
"The song is clearly directed against Arafat Abou-Chaker," replied public prosecutor Leister. And Rammo had emphasized that he did not want to interfere in the argument between the two. Didn't he intervene? "If the artist thinks he should do it that way, then he should do it," says Rammo.
Leister did not believe his ignorance and demanded that the recording of a conversation between Rammo and Abou-Chaker be played. A two-minute excerpt should prove that the witness knows more than he claims to know. It's about 180,000 euros, which, according to Bushido, were withdrawn from a company account without his knowledge. He claims to have asked Abou-Chaker where the money was. He had not received an answer, Bushido said in court in January. It was only in 2019 that he was suddenly told that the money was to be used to settle "private debts in Kleinmachnow" for the property they shared with Abou-Chaker. Then a lot of receipts were presented to him. "The whole story is of course a very big fake," Bushido said at the time.
He asked Ashraf Rammo to ask Abou-Chaker. But the witness could not remember any details in court. The recording of the phone call should help his memory on the jumps. The problem: Abou-Chaker secretly recorded the conversation. This makes recording illegal - and using it as evidence in court is not that easy.
Rammo ("You want to expose me here!") And his witness ("Mr. Rammo is the victim of an illegal admission") resisted in vain.
The court decided to play the recording.
An interpreter listened, but the quality of the recording is poor.
It sounds like Rammo and Abou-Chaker are sitting in a busy cafe.
"Wallah" can be heard.
Scraps of sentences.
Sometimes in German, sometimes in Arabic.
The interpreter waved it off.
"I didn't understand anything."
In the past few days he had to calmly translate the recording in writing; his version will be available this Monday.
The presiding judge reads them out.
The word "incomprehensible" occurs often.
The interpreter writes that he cannot rule out misinterpretations because of the unclear language.
According to the transcript, Abou-Chaker complains about Bushido several times in the conversation in April 2018. "He wants to make a mockery of me," he is reported to have said to Ashraf Rammo. Then it's about money. “Should I pay? Alone all the time? ”According to the interpreter's transcript, Abou-Chaker speaks of water pipes that he had laid on the shared property in Kleinmachnow. "Really, really, I swear by Allah." He complains that Bushido is running away from him. “Can I get there? Can I reach him? ”It is meant as a rhetorical question. Then he goes on scolding. "He's a liar."
The public prosecutor's office is not deterred by the incomplete text.
She asks the witness what the 180,000 euros are all about - and actually gets Ashraf Rammo to talk.
He insists that he never wanted to act as a mediator between the two.
"I was drawn into the role of mediator."
One day he was called by Arafat Abou-Chaker or his brother Nasser and asked to meet.
He asked Bushido what he should address there.
“I would be interested to know what about the 180,000 euros.
Please ask «, said Bushido.
Rammo did it.
Arafat Abou-Chaker said: "The 180,000 euros are in Kleinmachnow, I invested them there." Bushido should simply sit down with him at the table and they would clarify that.
Afterwards he reported about it to Anis Ferchichi, Bushido's real name, says Rammo: »Anis, watch out.
It was a long conversation, very annoying as always.
He's right, you're right
He threw the money in Kleinmachnow. ”The judge asks about Bushido's reaction.
»Anis is a very calm, very thoughtful person.
He's taken note of it. ”Was he angry?
"I didn't feel like he minded."
When asked by the defense, Rammo said again that Bushido never told him about an incident on January 18, 2018.
On that day, Arafat Abou-Chaker is said to have locked the rapper in prison and attacked him with a plastic bottle and a chair.
Rammo says that if he had known about it, he would not have met Abou-Chaker at all.
And there was no mention of it at the meeting itself.
Rammo repeats that he did not know anything about an allegedly forced business relationship between Bushido and Abou-Chaker.
"For me, for all of Germany, they were brothers." Bushido told him that they were partners.
In court, Bushido presented it in such a way that Abou-Chaker was only his manager on paper.
For all the money that Abou-Chaker has collected from him over the years, he is said to have hardly done anything.
The defense sees it differently.
She asks Rammo what role Abou-Chaker had in the partnership with Bushido.
"Getting artists ashore, that was, I think, Arafat's job."
The defendant should be quite satisfied with this statement.
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