Cheb Mami - Arrest, Imprisonment and Release

Arrest, Imprisonment and Release

Mami was under an international arrest warrant after being indicted in October 2006 for "voluntary violence, sequestration and threats" against an ex-girlfriend, and failing to answer a court summons on May 14, 2007. He was accused of having tried to force Isabelle Simon, his former girlfriend and a magazine photographer, to have a forced abortion. During a trip to Algeria in the summer of 2005, the victim Isabelle Simon was locked in a house belonging to one of Mami's friends, where an abortive procedure was attempted on her. Back in France, however, she realized the fetus was still alive; she later gave birth to a daughter. Mami had accused his manager Michel Lecorre (a.k.a. Michel Levy) of organizing the abortion plan; Michel Levy was later sentenced to four years for plotting and organizing the assault.

Mami was arrested in France several days before his trial; he was taken into custody by officials at a Paris airport as he arrived into the country from Algeria on June 22, 2010. The following July, a Paris court found him guilty of drugging and attempted forcible abortion, and sentenced him to five years in prison.

On 21 September 2010, his lawyers applied for conditional release, a request that was turned down on 12 October 2010. Upon a second appeal however, the French court agreed for his conditional release on 23 March 2011.

Read more about this topic:  Cheb Mami

Famous quotes containing the words imprisonment and/or release:

    ... imprisonment itself, entailing loss of liberty, loss of citizenship, separation from family and loved ones, is punishment enough for most individuals, no matter how favorable the circumstances under which the time is passed.
    Mary B. Harris (1874–1957)

    We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.
    Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)