Key suspect in Benzema sex tape case apologises to Valbuena
Benzema is accused of complicity in an attempt to extort money from his former France team-mate Valbuena over a video that was copied from his smartphone in 2015. The affair rocked the French national team and led to both Benzema and Valbuena being cast out of the squad. Benzema, 33, made a successful comeback during this year's European championships but Valbuena, 37, was never called up by Les Bleus again.
"I apologise from the bottom of my heart, I really regret it," Mustapha Zouaoui, one of four people accused along with Benzema of trying to hold Valbuena to ransom, told Valbuena on the second day of the trial. Zouaoui is believed to have come up with the blackmail plot, which Valbuena says left him feeling fearful, both for his safety and his career.
Benzema, who played and scored for Real in a Champions League match in Ukraine on Tuesday, is not attending the proceedings in Versailles outside Paris.
Testifying on the opening day of the trial, Valbuena said being selected for the national team was "the Holy Grail for footballers" and that he "never could have imagined" a team-mate being implicated in a plot against him. Benzema claims he was only trying to help the midfielder when he approached him about the sex tape in October 2015 and told him he could help him find someone to "manage" the affair.
He also warned Valbuena that he was dealing with "very, very heavy criminals". Valbuena, 37, who now plays for Greek club Olympiakos, told the court Benzema was "very insistent" during the conversation at the French team's training centre in Clairefontaine, west of Paris.
