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Arafat Abou-Chaker (March 2022): Charged with, among other things, attempted aggravated extortion, deprivation of liberty and dangerous bodily harm
Photo: IMAGO/Olaf Wagner
It is an interim result that Bushido cannot please - Arafat Abou-Chaker and his three brothers all the more.
The 38th Greater Criminal Chamber of the Berlin Regional Court announced this Wednesday how it sees the evidence in the trial against Abou-Chaker as it currently stands.
"A rough preliminary assessment," is how the presiding judge called it on the 71st day of the hearing.
And as if it were just any document in this process, which is not poor in documents, Judge Martin Mrosk reads it out
the Chamber's balance sheet at breakneck speed.
But what he reads has it all.
There are some in the German hip-hop scene who consider the rapper Bushido to be a gifted liar and manipulator.
They will triumph, even if the court doesn't say a word that day as to whether they believe Bushido or not.
The judges only determine which points of the indictment they consider to be unproven or unprovable after 70 days of the trial.
And that's a few.
long process
For almost two years, Arafat Abou-Chaker has had to answer in court for, among other things, attempted severe extortion, deprivation of liberty and dangerous bodily harm.
After Bushido himself
2017
resigned from Abou-Chaker, the clan boss is said to have threatened him, demanded millions of dollars, locked Bushido in a room on January 18, 2018, insulted him and attacked him with a half-full 0.5-liter plastic water bottle and a chair.
Two brothers - Yasser and Nasser - are said to have been there at the time and supported Arafat Abou-Chaker.
Ultimately, it should have been about money.
That's what the indictment says.
Anis Ferchichi aka Bushido presented his collaboration with Arafat Abou-Chaker in court as a pact with the devil. Abou-Chaker exploited him, threatened him, insulted him and tried to control him right up to his marriage to Anna-Maria Ferchichi.
Abou-Chaker never fulfilled his duties as manager.
Bushido and Abou-Chaker's collaboration earned both millions.
The gangsta rapper and the clan boss - a business model that worked for years.
The interim report of the court
For the Chamber, however, the taking of evidence so far shows that there can be no talk of an attempted serious extortion.
Because according to their preliminary assessment, Arafat, Yasser and Nasser Abou-Chaker had reason to believe that Arafat Abou-Chaker was actually still entitled to receive money from Bushido in January 2018.
Even Bushido said in court that he assumed he would still have to pay Abou-Chaker money after the breakup.
But if all sides thought that the dispute was about legitimate claims for payment, then Abou-Chaker could not be accused of wanting to illegally enrich himself.
According to the current status, the three Abou-Chaker brothers cannot be proven to have been deprived of their liberty either.
Arafat Abou-Chaker may have locked the door on January 18, 2018 just to talk to Bushido undisturbed.
This is how Abou-Chaker had done it before, so that someone didn't constantly burst into the conversation.
It is also questionable whether the accused would have been able to tell at all that Bushido would have liked to leave the room.
The chamber is reminiscent of a friend of Abou-Chaker and Bushido, who is said to have come at some point on that January day and offered Bushido to accompany him out.
Bushido declined the offer.
But how should Abou-Chaker then recognize that Bushido stayed against his will?
In case of doubt for the accused – a legal principle that could also apply to this charge.
The chamber did not comment on a possible attack with a plastic bottle and a chair by Arafat Abou-Chaker that day.
For Arafat Abou-Chaker, it is about the accusation of being dangerous
Mayhem.
However, the court notes that it sees no evidence that there was an agreement between Nasser, Yasser and Arafat Abou-Chaker to beat Bushido.
Rather, Nasser Abou-Chaker had a de-escalating effect on Arafat Abou-Chaker.
Bushido himself had reported this in court.
According to the preliminary assessment of the court, Nasser Abou-Chakar was not involved in any form of physical harm, but on the contrary expressed that he did not agree with an attack on Bushido.
No gestures of triumph
And so the chamber's note for Nasser Abou-Chaker ends with a sentence that his three brothers probably also hope for: "After a preliminary assessment, the accused Nasser Abou-Chaker would be acquitted."
Arafat, Nasser, Yasser and Rommel Abou-Chaker refrain from any gesture of triumph in court.
Bushido is not in the hall that day.
But the last word has by no means been spoken anyway.
The defense, Bushido's lawyer and the public prosecutor's office can comment on the chamber's advice until the next day of the hearing on June 15.
And it is certainly not to be expected that Chief Public Prosecutor Petra Leister will give up her indictment on these points without a fight.
