Moroccan international footballer Achraf Hakimi, who plays for French side Paris Saint-Germain, has been charged with rape.
On Monday, prosecutors in the Paris suburb of Nanterre opened a preliminary investigation into the accusation, and on Thursday the player was charged by investigators, and placed under judicial supervision by an investigating judge.
On Friday Hakimi was present at PSG training, and the club says he has their support and will play in a match next weekend.
A 24-year-old woman has accused Hakimi, a defender who played for Morocco at this year’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar last year, of raping her at his home in the west of Paris.
Hakimi’s lawyer said earlier this week that the accusations against her client were “false” and that Hakimi was “at the disposal of justice.”
The woman who made the accusations spoke to investigators on Wednesday, and her lawyer told journalists: “My client maintains all her statement. She made the choice to express herself exclusively to justice and does not wish to publicise the case, especially to preseve his safey.”
The young woman had first gone Sunday to a police station where she said she was raped, without filing a complaint.
According to a police source, she then said she met Achraf Hakimi — who scored the winning penalty for Morocco against Spain in the round of 16 of the Qatar World Cup — in January on the social network Instagram, and went to his home in on Saturday in a chauffeur-driven car which the player reportedly organised.
The same police says that Hakimi kissed the women, and then touched her without her consent, before raping her. At one point she managed to push him away, and messaged a friend to come and collect her.
Achraf Hakimi arrived at PSG in 2021, from Italian side Inter Milan. He is considered one of the best right backs in the world, and was part of squad which won FIFA’s “team of the year 2022” award announced Monday in Paris.