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French Soccer Icon Karim Benzema Sues Interior Minister Over Muslim Brotherhood Accusation
French soccer star Karim Benzema at the 2023 signing ceremony for hs move to Saudi club Al-Ittihad. Photo: Reuters/Handout
A leading French soccer star is suing the country’s interior minister for accusing him of retaining links to the Muslim Brotherhood — an international Islamist network created nearly a century ago that now includes the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
Karim Benzema, 36, announced on Tuesday that he was bringing a defamation case against French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin over a television interview last October in which the politician charged that the player’s links with the Muslim Brotherhood were common knowledge.
“Benzema is notoriously linked with the Muslim Brotherhood, we all know it,” Darmanin claimed during an interview with the conservative broadcaster C-News. In the same interview, he argued, “We are fighting the hydra that is the Muslim Brotherhood because it creates an atmosphere of jihadism.”
Darmanin’s remarks were triggered by a posting written by Benzema on X/Twitter in which he said, “Our prayers for the people of Gaza, victims once again of unjust bombardments that spare neither women nor children.” The interior minister pointed out that Benzema — a former Real Madrid striker who won the coveted Ballon d’Or in 2022 — had failed to condemn both the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were murdered and over 200 kidnapped amid atrocities including rape and mutilation, and the gruesome decapitation in Oct. 2020 of Samuel Paty, a high school teacher in Paris who was targeted by an Islamist student after he showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the course of a class on freedom of speech.
In a 92-page complaint, Benzema — a practicing Muslim who now plays soccer in Saudi Arabia, where he captains Pro-League side Al-Ittihad — said that he was “aware of the extent to which, because of my notoriety, I am being used in political games, which are all the more scandalous given that the dramatic events since Oct. 7 deserve something quite different from this type of statement.”
The complaint also noted Benzema’s alarm that he is seen as “a symbol of urban youth — immigrant, Muslim, hostile to France, and antisemitic.” It went on to insist that he “never had the slightest link with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, nor knowledge of anyone who claims to be a member of it.”
Benzema’s announcement comes just two weeks after the Algerian international Youcef Atal, who plays at right-back for Nice, was handed an eight-month suspended sentence and a $49,000 fine for posting a video the day after the Oct. 7 massacre that featured a Palestinian cleric calling for “a black day over the Jews.”
No stranger to controversies off the field, Benzema was ejected from the French national team over accusations that he had tried to blackmail a teammate, Mathieu Valbuena, over an amateur sex video. In 2021, he was fined $75,000 and handed a one-year suspended sentence for his part in the scandal. The following year, Benzema failed in a legal attempt to sue the far right activist Damien Rieu over a photo the latter posted on social media showing the soccer star delivering a middle-finger gesture alongside an image of jihadists doing the same.
The post French Soccer Icon Karim Benzema Sues Interior Minister Over Muslim Brotherhood Accusation first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: IDF Probes Whether Houthis Used Iranian Cluster Bomb-Bearing Missile
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Israeli military said Saturday it launched a probe into the failure of its defenses to fully intercept a missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, parts of which struck not far from the Ben Gurion airport on Friday night.
According to the Ynet website, one of the hypotheses being examined is that the projectile contained cluster munitions, similar to those used by Iran to fire at Israeli cities during the 12-day war in June. Cluster munitions pose a challenge to interceptors as they disperse smaller explosives over a wide area.
In June, Iran fired several missiles carrying scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties.
The IDF said on Saturday that its initial review suggests the ballistic missile from Yemen likely fragmented in mid-air. Five interceptors from various systems engaged with the missile, including THAAD, Arrow, David Sling & Iron Dome.
Authorities said that shrapnel impacted a house in the central Israeli moshav of Ginaton, yet no one was hurt, with the fragment landing in the house’s backyard.
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Iran Forces Kill Six Militants, IRNA Reports, Israel Link Seen
The Iranian flag is seen flying over a street in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2023. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iranian security forces shot dead six militants in a clash in southeastern Iran on Saturday, a day after armed rebels killed five police officers in the restive region, the official news agency IRNA reported.
IRNA said evidence showed the group was linked to Israel and may have been trained by Israel‘s Mossad spy agency. There was no immediate Israeli reaction to the allegation.
Another two members of the militant group were arrested, the report said. All but one of the militants were foreign, it added, without giving their nationality.
Iranian police said this month they had arrested as many as 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Iran’s southeast has been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed groups, including Sunni militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy.
Tehran says some of them have ties to foreign powers and are involved in cross-border smuggling and insurgency.
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Benny Gantz Urges Time-Limited National Unity Government to Further Chances of Hostage Deal
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz attends his party’s meeting at the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, June 27, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz on Saturday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition politicians to form a temporary national unity government to further the chances of bringing home the hostages held in Gaza.
Addressing Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Liberman, Gantz said that the proposed government’s two supreme priorities would be the release of Israeli hostages held by the jihadists of Hamas and instituting universal conscription in Israel by ending the exemption from military service enjoyed by the ultra-Orthodox.
Upon attainment of the goals, the government would dissolve and call an election.
“The government’s term will begin with a hostage deal that brings everyone home,” Gantz said in a video address. “Within weeks, we will formulate an enlistment outline that would see our ultra-Orthodox brethren drafted to the military and ease the burden on those already serving. Finally, we will announce an agreed-upon election date in the spring of 2026 and pass a law to dissolve the Knesset [Israeli parliament] accordingly. This is what’s right for Israel.”