Congolese singer Koffi Olomide sentenced on appeal for kidnapping

Koffi Olomidé, Congolese rumba star, was released Monday, December 13 on appeal of the charges of sexual assault on four of his ex-dancers, but sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment with a three-year probationary suspension for the to have sequestered during his tours in France. The release on sexual assault is “delivered for the benefit of the doubt”, explained the president of the 7th correctional chamber of the Court of Appeal of Versailles, referring in particular to “evolving, sometimes contradictory statements“of the complainants.

On the other hand, sequestration “there is no doubt”, with complainants “deprived of all liberty and constantly monitored” by two accomplices of Koffi Olomidé between 2002 and 2006 in a pavilion in the Parisian suburbs, where locks had been installed on the shutters. His two Congolese guards, Mbila Kakese and Ogima Tsasa Nduka, were both sentenced to six months in prison with a three-year probationary period. Complainants “will necessarily be disappointed about the offense of sexual assault since it was for them the most important thing”, declared at the end of the deliberation Me David Desgranges, who represents three of the dancers. “On the other hand, the sequestration was retained” on the contrary to the judgment in first instance, with consequent interest and damages, estimates the lawyer: Koffi Olomide and his two accomplices must pay from 10,000 to 32,000 euros for each dancer.

The four Congolese women, who lodged a complaint between 2007 and 2013, accused Koffi Olomide of having locked them in a pavilion in the Paris suburbs and of having forced them to have sex with him, on a regular basis for some. The judgment rendered Monday, December 13 by the court is far from the expectations of the general prosecutor’s office. During the trial held at the end of October, the prosecution requested eight years in prison against the 65-year-old Franco-Congolese, asking to reconsider “the shipwreck” of the first judgment and to convict this “mighty man”, international star who now lives in France.

At first instance, in 2019, the Nanterre court had sentenced him to two years in prison for “sexual impairment” on one of the young women, declared a minor at the time of the facts, and had acquitted him of the proceedings concerning the three others.