French football duo face underage sex charges

FRANCE international footballers Frank Ribery and Karim Benzema were yesterday charged with having had sex with an underage prostitute, as magistrates cracked down on an alleged celebrity vice ring.

The indictments are the first stage of a formal judicial investigation that could lead to a trial and, if convicted, both players face up to three years in jail and a fine of €45,000.

Ribery, who plays for German giants Bayern Munich, arrived at the offices of the investigating magistrates at the Palace of Justice in Paris, but he was left without preconditions after the hearing.

Ribery’s lawyer Sophie Bottai expressed surprise at the charge.

“The only thing that’s new since the last time he was questioned is that the World Cup is over and he played badly,” she told reporters, confirming that her client’s 22-year-old brother-in-law had also been charged.

The counsel for Real Madrid striker Benzema was not immediately available for comment.

Ribery has never denied having paid for sex with the young woman at the centre of the scandal, 18-year-old blonde party girl Zahia Dehar, but his lawyer told reporters that he had had no idea in 2008 that she was underage.

“There’s not a single element of physical proof,” she said. “This woman told them she was of age, was all made up, dressed up, appeared very switched on.”

The players appeared before investigating magistrate Andre Dando after having been detained by vice squad officers and questioned for six hours on a charge of having “solicited an underage prostitute”.

The players were detained at the request of the magistrate, who is probing claims that a Champs Elysees nightclub gave clients access to minors working as call girls.

Dehar is now 18 years and four months old. She has been questioned by police and gave a tell-all interview to the news and gossip weekly Paris Match after the scandal erupted.

She described selling sexual encounters to Ribery in 2009 and to Benzema in 2008, while she was underage, and with a third French player, 30-year-old Panathinaikos winger Sidney Govou, in March, when she was an adult.

Dehar has said the players did not know she was a minor. In France the general age of consent is 15 years, but in the case of prostitution a young person remains legally a minor until he or she reaches 18.