At the Paris Criminal Court,
It had been three days since his shadow hung over the trial of the Pogba affair, his name was on everyone's lips without the sound of his voice having yet been heard. Lurking in the glass box in a corner of the room, accompanied by a police escort when the rest of the Fox gang took their place on a bench among the public and the magistrates, Roushdane K. finally saw his time coming.
A key figure in this extortion affair, his profile stands out compared to the other defendants. Older, Roushdane known as “The Red”, above all displays a judicial CV incommensurate with Pogba's close friends, most of whom are unknown to the battalion of authorities. Sentenced (among other things) to ten years in prison for attempted murder in 2006, this man from Benin has already spent fifteen years of his life behind bars.
Described by everyone as “the big brother” in the city of La Renardière, the one we respect and listen to, Roushdane presents himself as a sort of mediator with the Pogba gang when there are small differences to settle . Not from the same generation as the rest of the group, “it’s very rare that I hang out with them,” he says. “I saw them all grow up through my brother (Machikour K., also in the dock).”
Roushdane has a failing memory
This is precisely what questions the magistrates, who wonder what he was doing with the gang on the night of March 19 to 20, 2022, for what he himself describes as an “evening with friends”, the evening where Pogba was robbed. Heavily suspected of being the mastermind of the operation, having either organized or sponsored it, Roushdane will go to great lengths to say as little as possible in court. His answers are evasive, when they exist, most of the time choosing to remain silent.
Between his first hearing before the police until Thursday's hearing before the President, he continued to change his version of how the evening went. He no longer remembers whether it was he who was at the wheel to drive Pogba to Montévrain's apartment, nor how he ended up with the gang that evening. We vaguely understand that he had a business project to propose to Pogba, while he had previously prided himself on not being the type of guy to beg for anything from the player. But it's not for him, it's for his acquaintances.
“Which ones?” What is this knowledge? », asks the President. “Acquaintances, people I know,” he replies, laconic. The three hours of interrogation will be of the same ilk. Referred to by everyone as the one who ordered everyone to turn off their phones, “to be quiet”, he refuses to be seen as the order giver or “the villain of the story”. He too is “a victim”, he swears with his hand on his heart.
Accomplice or victim?
As for what happened or what he said to himself once he opened the door to the robbers, his memory is failing again. When it’s not a downright refusal to describe the robbery: “I’m not talking about that. » Under pressure from the court, he ends up throwing himself into the water (backwards). “I was trying to find a solution to get us out of there, I wasn't listening to what the two men were asking from Pogba,” he rewinds.
He will still take the initiative to act as guarantor for the player, ensuring that he will end up paying. And the Prosecutor asked him: “but how can you guarantee?” You had 42 cents in your current account and were in debt of 25,000 euros? “. Again, radio silence. An eminently interesting point all the same, while everyone is wondering how the robbers managed to find out the address of the apartment and the access codes to the building, he declares having sent them by text message to these famous acquaintances during the journey.
Could there be a cause and effect link between the two? “Maybe it was them and they set me up,” he mused, without seeming more upset than that by the consequences of his action. While Pogba repeated to investigators that Roushdane seemed very complicit with the mysterious armed commando, exchanging smiles with him, he retorted that the former Mancunian was talking nonsense. From one end of the afternoon to the other, “The Red” insists on repeating that he is a victim, that he fears reprisals.
Hey, here’s Paul Bismuth again!
Shot by bullet on August 10, 2022 in equally strange conditions, he brandished this throughout his interrogation so that we would stop suspecting him. Unfortunately, the video of the shooting, which his attackers subsequently sent him, was accidentally deleted. We must believe that this is a mania for him, since the investigation showed that he had systematically deleted all his conversations on the encrypted messaging services he used, as well as his call history.
During the weeks surrounding the events, he used no less than nine telephone lines purchased under false names. A sort of Paul Bismuth with Rackham Le Rouge sauce, shall we say. Taken together, these countless elements and the way in which he defended himself on Friday have little chance of convincing the court of his innocence. To see Mathias Pogba's reaction throughout Roushdane K.'s interrogation, his head in his hands or his eyes wide, it would seem that he too is not really convinced.
The brother of the world champion will perhaps say more on this subject during his hearing next Tuesday at the bar. Because if it is proven that he did not participate directly or indirectly in the kidnapping of his brother, Mathias Pogba had the opportunity to mess with “Roush” in the weeks that followed. It was in fact at the latter's father's house, in Normandy, that he recorded the accusatory videos against Paul. The court, in a final, desperate attempt to understand the role he also played in this, will break its teeth once again.
He doesn't budge, he has nothing to do with it, he was only guided in this matter by the desire to get his friends out of trouble in the face of the mystery threat. A threat which, since the Fresnes prison where he is currently incarcerated, continues to haunt him. “If I speak, it will be worse,” he blurted out. “But you are afraid while you are in prison,” asks the prosecutor. What's worse? “. And he concludes, chillingly: “Death”.
