{"id":137,"date":"2021-01-08T11:31:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T11:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifenewstream.com\/?p=137"},"modified":"2021-01-08T11:31:46","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T11:31:46","slug":"karim-benzema-to-face-trial-for-alleged-involvement-in-attempted-blackmail-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/?p=137","title":{"rendered":"Karim Benzema to face trial for alleged involvement in attempted blackmail case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Real Madrid forward Benzema is accused of paying individuals to extort money from Mathieu Valbuena by threatening to make the video public in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 33-year-old French striker argues that a police officer used dishonest methods to draw him into the affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He has not played for his country since it came to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>French prosecutors announced Benzema would face trial on Thursday, reported the AFP News Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AFP also quoted Benzema&#8217;s lawyer, Sylvain Cormier, as saying he was not surprised the matter was going to trial, but that the decision was &#8220;as absurd as it was predictable&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Benzema has scored 261 goals for Real since joining the Spanish side in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He and Valbuena were international team-mates at the time of the affair and were in the France squad for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Valbuena, 36, was playing for Lyon at the time but is now with Greek side Olympiakos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Real Madrid forward Benzema is accused of paying individuals to extort money from Mathieu Valbuena by threatening to make the video public in 2015. The &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139,"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newshouse.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}