A rapper has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping a fan who wanted to take a picture of him.
Zola is accused of imprisoning a 19-year-old man in his basement for two hours and threatening him with a gun after the fan turned up at his home in outer Paris hoping for a photo.
The French star, 26, allegedly came outside with masked and armed men. The fan’s friends fled but he was caught and dragged back to the rapper’s home in Le Pin, Seine-et-Marne, on Nov 6, according to French media reports.
“During the two hours that followed, both inside and outside the said home, the victim was subjected to numerous acts of violence in the form of punches, kicks, insults and verbal threats,” Jean-Baptiste Bladier, prosecuting, said on Saturday.
“Having been forced to undress, his clothes were set on fire. A handgun was pointed at one of his temples before the barrel of said weapon was inserted into his mouth.”
Le Parisien newspaper reported the attackers allegedly fired “bursts of gunfire from a long gun very close to him”.
Teenager traumatised, prosecutors claim
The prosecutor said that attackers mentioned the man’s ethnicity, telling him not to fear for his life because they didn’t want to “go to prison for a little white girl”.
The young man’s phone and bank card were allegedly stolen before his car’s tyres were slashed and windows smashed. They allegedly threatened to kill the fan if he told anyone of his ordeal.
The alleged victim took refuge with family members who live nearby. He was unable to work physically for six days but was so damaged by the ordeal psychologically that he did not return to work for 35 days, prosecutors said.
Zola has more than three million monthly listeners on Spotify – Zoulerah Norddine/AFP
Zola, whose full name is Aurélien N’Zuzi Zola, and three other men have been charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, theft, criminal damage and possession of a weapon.
They have remained silent or denied the charges, the public prosecutor said.
This was “despite unequivocal evidence, in particular from telephone exchanges between the protagonists”, he added.
Requesting a delay to prepare his defence, Zola was placed in pre-trial detention for four days and “the next adversarial hearing will be held on Wednesday, Nov 26 ,” the prosecutor said, in press release on Saturday morning.
Zola was placed in pre-trial detention with a court hearing expected on Nov 26 after he requested time to prepare his defence.
The rapper, who is of Congolese descent, has produced three French-language albums and is best known for his song Amber.
He has more than three million monthly listeners on Spotify and sold 24,000 records of his second album Survie in just seven days in 2020.
