The international star of the Congolese rumba, Koffi Olomide, risks big.
This Monday evening, the general prosecutor requested eight years of imprisonment against the singer, retried on appeal in Versailles for having abused four of his dancers, sequestered in a pavilion he rented in Asnières (Hauts-de-Seine), between 2002 and 2006.
Tried at first instance, in 2019, in Nanterre, the singer, now 65, was sentenced to two years in prison, for the sexual abuse imposed on only one of the four complainants.
A sentence well below the requisitions at the time, seven years, which had led the prosecution to appeal the decision.
This judgment of the court of Nanterre, the general counsel at the hearing, Monday in Versailles, simply described it as "shipwreck".
In turn, she called for a substantial sentence: eight years in prison.
She therefore has no doubt that this "powerful man" kept his dancers locked up in the house of Asnières, possibly abusing them on the spot or having them taken to hotels for forced sex.
"It was a relationship of influence"
Koffi Olomide bluntly denied it before the Court of Appeal, considering that he was the victim of a plot to “break (his) career”. According to him, the young women, recruited in Congo to participate in a French tour, were free to come and go. However, he admits to having granted himself "a right of scrutiny" on their movements and, above all, on their contacts with their families, to avoid trouble with the French authorities. "The dream of any Congolese is to come to France and stay there," explained the defendant. They should not be told to stay and end up without a visa. I was in charge. "
For the four women, aged 33 to 42 today, it was not a question of right of inspection but of real domination.
With the obligation to comply with the demands of the “boss”, under penalty of being deprived of work, and therefore of money.
"It was a relationship of influence," according to Me David Desgranges, the lawyer for three of them, thus explaining the lack of precision in the story of his clients.
This is the whole problem, pleaded the advice of Koffi Olomidé, Mes Emmanuel Marsigny and Antoine Vey, for whom the release is essential.
"There is absolutely no material element supporting the claims of the complainants", argued Me Vey.
The appeals court will deliver its decision on December 13.