At the Paris Criminal Court,
After the false start of the day before, the trial of the Paul Pogba affair finally entered its concrete phase, Wednesday, with the hearing of the first of the six defendants, Machikour K, present on the scene on the evening of March 19, 2022, when the French international was robbed by two armed and hooded men. If the program announced the day before by the President planned to hear three of them, the long delay taken by the magistrates did not allow the two other accused, Adama C. and Mamadou M., to take the stand.
For almost four hours, without interruption, Machikour M. answered questions from the different parties with the aim of enlightening the court on the chronology and progress of this extortion affair which could have turned into a tragedy. This 35-year-old man, from the Renardière district in Roissy-en-Brie, where the Pogba family grew up, declared himself closer to Mathias Pogba than to Paul, even if he had relations with him that he will define it as “fraternal” and “made of mutual respect”.
The “generous” Mr Pogba
In fact, he was visibly part of the first (or second) circle of the former Mancunian, since the latter regularly paid him, for years, sums of between 5,000 and 15,000 euros, by transfer or in cash. “Paul was a generous person. He always told us that if we ever needed him, we could ask him,” he explains.
Indeed, in addition to this already generous pocket money that he paid him without any compensation, Pogba also gave 150,000 euros to Machikour K. and Adama C. to allow them to open a fast food restaurant, Tasty’s, in Pontault-Combault. But during the year 2022, while the two restaurateur friends had been promised a new payment of 150,000 euros, Paul Pogba decided to cut off the cash tap and put distance between him and his friends in the neighborhood . When the President asks him if this might not have a link with these generous (and recurring) donations, the accused refutes. “Our relationship was not just financial,” he assures.
An “evening with friends” that goes wrong
However, it is a lot of money, this and many others, which will be discussed during the famous evening of March 19, 2022 in an apartment in Montévrain, in Seine-et-Marne. While he had originally planned to join friends from another circle that evening, after making a detour at the Fox, Pogba is invited to follow his childhood friends and change his program. “I thought they wanted to talk about money, to settle things between men,” Pogba told the police. If he assures for his part that it was originally only a “meeting between friends”, Machikour K. nevertheless admits that it was also a question of “putting things straight” and evoking the promise not held regarding the second payment of 150,000 euros.
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The rest is known: after a certain time, Roushdane K., Machikour’s brother, asked him to leave the apartment in order to leave him alone with Paul Pogba. It was only then that the two hooded men burst into the accommodation, before threatening him with heavy weapons and demanding 13 million euros. Although he did not witness the scene, Machikour quickly understood on his return to the apartment that “the atmosphere had changed”, without trying to understand what had just happened. It was only the next day, according to him, that his brother explained the scene of the robbery to him.
Adidas shopping trip, as if nothing had happened
Despite the obvious seriousness of the situation, and this is a point which will not fail to surprise the president and the lawyers of the civil party, an event of a completely different nature will occur only 72 hours later. While they claim to be total strangers (and therefore victims, too) of the robbery and the extortion attempt, these same friends will ask the 2018 world champion if they can go to the Adidas store on the Champs-Elysées to take advantage of the credit Pogba has as the face of the brand.
If he declares that he is in the habit of doing this “two or three times a year”, for purchases of “between 2,000 and 3,000 euros” on the footballer’s account, this time the shopping trip at the expense of the princess will take on staggering proportions. “We overindulged, we were in euphoria,” Machikour K will readily admit. A nice euphemism since the bill this time amounts to… 57,785 euros, in three visits, between March 23 and 26.
It will even take a truck (and a human chain of store employees) to ship the approximately 800 products with the three stripes brand. And while he had already contacted Adidas’ marketing department twice to increase his budget, Pogba will finally have to come in person to settle the overflow of unpaid debts. Oh, next to nothing, 17,000 euros on a credit card. “Paul was surprised by the amount,” says Machikour K. “He was not happy. » In the middle of a rally with the French team, and while three days earlier he had an M16 pointed in his face, we would be less.
A sequence of facts that questions
It is this point that leaves the magistrates speechless. And one of the two prosecutors asked him: “How, after what your friend experienced in this apartment, can you find yourself doing what the manager of the Adidas store himself described as a raid?” “. “I had not assessed the scope of the thing,” the boy responds laconically, his features drawn after four hours spent on the stand.
We understand implicitly that this does not buy the theory of a second gang of robbers, very well informed to know the address of Montévrain’s apartment, who would have acted without the assistance of the accused. For the investigators, we should rather see in the episode on the Champs-Elysées Pogba’s desire to calm the ardor of his greedy friends, by letting them enjoy tracksuits, football jerseys and other shoes in abundance.
For the defendant’s lawyer, Me Yves Leberquier, these two events cannot be linked to explain his client’s guilt. As proof, he cites this testimony from the director of the Adidas store, who declared during his hearing before the police that “Paul Pogba also seemed relaxed when he arrived, even playing ball with the children in the store.” Still, the course of these few days and the contrast between the violence of March 19 and the lightness of the following days is enough to leave one wondering. The next hearings will perhaps make it possible to clarify all of this, as well as the countless other gray areas that the court has not always been able to address in depth.
