2023-10-30 09:04:22
No hard feelings for Paul Pogba? During a recent confrontation, the French international assured his loved ones, suspected of having played a role in his sequestration in March 2022, that they would “always have a place in his heart”. “I had enormous esteem for all the people who are here, they were like my family,” declared the footballer before the two investigating judges who organized this confrontation, on September 15 at the Paris court.
“The truth will come out. (…) Despite everything that has happened, they will always have a place in my heart,” insists the world champion, according to legal information of which AFP has become aware. Words echoing the statements of the suspects, childhood friends or old acquaintances of the player: Boubacar C. has “heartache” at the idea that Pogba could “think (that he) wanted to harm him”, Machikour K. says he is “deeply hurt” while Mamadou M. claims to have always “wanted to protect him”.
Five relatives of the player indicted
Since September 2022, two magistrates have been investigating the incredible kidnapping of Pogba on March 19, 2022, in the Paris suburbs, during which two unidentified robbers demanded 13 million euros from him. Five of his relatives are indicted for extortion committed with weapons and kidnapping by an organized gang. These men, aged 29 to 38, are also being prosecuted for criminal conspiracy.
But they all deny it, presenting themselves as “victims” of the robbers and claiming to have been attacked themselves because Pogba refused to pay. Paul’s brother, Mathias, also indicted but absent the night of the kidnapping, was not summoned to the confrontation. The magistrates first seek to clarify the financial relationships between the player and his relatives.
The footballer explained that he “voluntarily” helped his loved ones, but refused, in September 2021, to give seven million euros to three of them. The latter vigorously deny having asked for such a sum. “I told them that it was too much,” Pogba continues, but that “I could help them in other ways and I gave them some cash”: between 15,000 and 20,000 euros for each.
The footballer also specified that he had “distanced himself” from his friends before the confinement. A setback a priori not perceived by those close to him: only one confirms that he “had cut ties”. According to a police summary of which AFP was aware, written before the confrontation, the five constitute “a criminal team (…) with the objective of extracting 13 million euros from Paul, who had cut off supplies at the start of ‘year “.
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