(Paris) Rapper Booba was questioned Monday in Paris by an investigating judge and indicted for cyberharassment against Magali Berdah. He defends himself, presenting himself as “a whistleblower” against “the influencers”.
Booba, aged 46, was indicted for aggravated online moral harassment and placed under judicial supervision, sources close to the case told AFP, confirmed by the Paris prosecutor’s office.
According to one of the sources close to the case, he was placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness for the acts of death threats and concealment of an offense of invasion of privacy.
This indictment follows numerous complaints from Magali Berdah, a 41-year-old businesswoman and founder of Shauna Events, an agency specializing in relationships between TV personalities and brands.
“This decision, awaited for months, is a huge victory for Magali Berdah,” reacted her lawyers in a press release sent to AFP.
“It also constitutes a powerful signal addressed to all the lackeys of hatred who operate under pseudonyms on social networks,” continued Mes Antonin Gravelin-Rodriguez, Rachel-Flore Pardo and David-Olivier Kaminski.
In addition to the instruction targeting Booba, 28 people will be tried between November and January before the Paris Criminal Court for aggravated cyberstalking, death threats or even threats of crime against Magali Berdah.
They are accused of messages such as “We’re going to burn you”, “Go die bitch” or even “I’m going to rape you bitch”… on social networks.
On Booba’s side, Monday, “everything (was) fine”, assured the rapper in a video broadcast after leaving the court. “As you see, I’m at large, everything is fine. Piracy is never over,” he scolded.
Booba has launched, alongside a collective “helping victims of influencers”, into a crusade against those he calls “influvoleurs”, denouncing multiple scams against Internet users.
Some of his publications received a wide response: in April, for example, two parliamentarians reported to the courts the facts alleged against the influencer Dylan Thiry, which had been denounced in videos published by Booba.
Publications which fuel a broader debate on the influencer sector, for which Parliament voted for regulation in June.
But his way of doing things raises questions even before the courts. Because the rapper uses personal attacks and unsourced videos, particularly against Magali Berdah since May 2022.
In the wake of virulent tweets, the latter filed a first complaint, followed by dozens of others.
Opened in 2022, the investigation was entrusted to an investigating judge in the summer of 2023.
During the preliminary investigation carried out by the National Center for the Fight against Online Hate (PNLH), Booba did not honor his summons.
It was therefore the first time that the “Duke of Boulogne”, originally from Hauts-de-Seine, but who lives most of the year in the United States, was heard by the courts in this case.
The offense of cyberharassment was created by a law of 2018. It can be constituted when several people attacking the same victim know that their words or behavior characterize a repetition, without each of these people having acted repeated or concerted manner.
Magali Berdah also filed a complaint in April against the social network X (formerly Twitter) for complicity in cyberharassment.
For her part, the businesswoman is the subject of a preliminary investigation, after a complaint against X filed by Booba.
The latter accuses him of deceptive commercial practices with Shauna Events. The Grasse public prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation in September 2022, then indicated on Monday that it had withdrawn responsibility in favor of that of Paris.
In another case, where the alleged facts predate the creation of her online agency, she will be tried in December in Cannes for “bankruptcy and money laundering”, indicated a judicial source.