Music star Cheb Mami, arrested in Paris this week after two years on the run in Algeria, is on trial, charged with attempting to have his ex-girlfriend undergo a forced abortion.
Known as the "Prince of Rai", Mami, whose real name is Mohamed Khelifati, faces 10 years in jail and a $264,000 fine if found guilty of the assault on his former companion, a 43-year-old magazine photographer.
Mami told the court in Arabic that he felt "trapped" by the woman and his controlling manager and that he fled to escape the pressures of his entourage.
"Yes I was trapped," he testified. "I have always been discreet about my private life."
The Franco-Algerian singer skipped bail and fled to north Africa in 2007. Interpol in January formally asked Algiers to hand him over to Paris.
Charged with causing bodily harm, sequestration and issuing threats against his ex-girlfiend, Mami flew into Paris Monday evening and turned himself in to border police. He was taken into custody in the capital.
"I missed my family, I cracked and I left," Mami testified. "But in my mind, I always knew that I would be there on judgement day..."
"I made a mistake, that's all," said the 42-year-old singer, who has worked with the likes of British pop star Sting. He has not performed since the scandal broke and has started a new career as a real estate investor.
Mami's former manager Maurice Levy — who the singer accuses of organising the botched abortion — is standing trial on the same charges.
The woman, whose name has been withheld, alleges that in the summer of 2005 she was sequestered and drugged in an Algiers house belonging to a friend of the singer after revealing that she was pregnant.
Two doctors then allegedly attempted to carry out an abortion on her.
Returning to France, the woman learned that her pregnancy had not been terminated and went on to have the child, who is now three years old.
The star has expressed regret and blamed his former manager Levy for organising the operation.
But according to comments made by the singer in 2005, recorded by his ex-partner, he was present during the procedure.
"My client wants recognition of the barbaric acts she lived through. That those who assaulted her finally own up to their responsibilities.
"For Cheb Mami to say who did what, who decided what. For him to stop laying the blame on his ex-manager," the woman's lawyer Marie Dose said ahead of the trial.
Mami claimed while in Algeria he was the target of a media witch hunt due to his success as an "Arab star."
In an interview in June, he said he had lost faith in the French judiciary and preferred to be tried in Algeria.
The trial is set to wrap up later Thursday. The verdict could be handed down immediately or at a later date.
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