The rugby player was tried on Tuesday for domestic violence against his wife. Eighteen months in prison had been required.
The rugby player of the XV of France and Montpellier Mohamed Haouas was sentenced to one year in prison on Tuesday May 30, during his trial before the Montpellier criminal court for domestic violence, reports the journalist from France Bleu Hérault present on the spot. This prison sentence will be adjusted, the court said, which means that the continued detention is lifted. This sentence is less than the requisitions of the prosecution, which had requested 18 months in prison and continued detention. The player has 10 days to appeal.
Mohamed Haouas was tried for hitting his wife, Friday, May 26 in broad daylight and in front of multiple witnesses and CCTV cameras, in a shopping center in Montpellier. Now 29 years old, married and father of two children, the Montpellier Hérault Rugby player (MHR), reigning French champion, had been in pre-trial detention since Sunday May 28.
During this trial, Mohamed Haouas tried to justify himself, explaining that he had “make a movie”going back to the blows inflicted on his wife, after he saw her smoking a cigarette in front of the shopping center where she works: “She has the right to smoke, (…) but the problem is that she lied to me, (…) and I said to myself that if she can lie for the cigarette, she can lie for something else”. On the blows, the rugby player estimated that it was a “little tripper” and one “little slap, like that”.
Clermont announces that he will not be able to “wear his colors”
Mohamed Haouas had signed a three-year contract with AS Montferrand. After the sentencing, the club announced that the prop “will not be able to wear, on the ground, the colors” of the ASM. “By his behavior, Mohamed Haouas puts himself in total opposition to our identity and our convictions”, justified the Auvergne club in a press release, considering that the alleged facts were “unacceptable”. This condemnation comes a few days before the announcement of the 42 selected by Fabien Galthié for the Coupe de France, on June 21.
Mohamed Haouas had already been sentenced in February 2022 to an 18-month suspended prison sentence, for robberies of tobacco shops in Montpellier, in 2014. On May 12, 2023, during a second trial for his participation in a violent fight on the 1st January 2014, the prosecution requested a two-year suspended sentence. The deliberation in this case is expected on June 30.