Koffi Olomidé, a Congolese singer, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in France, see why
Koffi Olomidé, a Congolese rhumba artist, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for kidnapping his former dancers.
Touchaheart Nigeria reports that on Monday, December 13, the Versailles Court in France condemned him for detaining his former female dancers without their consent.
The Congolese star had already departed France when the Versailles court handed down his 18-month sentence.
The singer denied the accusations by his former dancers. He said that “the dream of the young women who accuse me was to live in France and obtain papers from associations.”
Koffi Olomide said that “women are very well protected, we must also listen to our point of view”.
The Congolese singer, on the other hand, was cleared of sexual assault allegations against the same dancers who were previously members of his Quartier Latin band.
The alleged sexual assaults on the dancers took place in the singer’s property in Asnières, a town in the Paris region, between 2002 and 2006.
The acquittal on the sexual assaults is “given for the benefit of the doubt,” explained the president of the 7th Correctional Chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal, referring in particular to the “evolving, sometimes contradictory statements” of the complainants.
The artist has a long legal history, including a conviction in France in 2019 for rape of a juvenile under the age of 15 and the sequestration of four of his dancers. Instead of the seven-year prison sentence sought by the prosecution, the Nanterre court awarded him a two-year suspended sentence.
The actress had filed an appeal against the sentencing.
Following a public assault on one of his dancers, he was expelled from Kenya in 2016. The singer apologized and admitted to “a brief moment of distraction.”
In 2018, Zambia issued an arrest warrant for him for assaulting a photojournalist, which is one of the incidents that has left the leader of the Quartier Latin band with a particularly bleak past.
