French soccer player held for rape

http://www.ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-10-11_1114017.html

Young ex-Auxerre striker accused by US student in Rome (ANSA) - Rome, October 11 - A French soccer player has been arrested in Rome on suspicion of raping an American student .

Garra Dembele', 20, a striker who has tried out for English and Italian clubs after being let go by first-division club AJ Auxerre this summer, was taken into custody at Termini Station on Tuesday evening. The unidentified US exchange student claims he raped her in a Rome disco bathroom on Monday night .

According to judicial sources, evidence of rape was found when the student was examined at a Rome hospital .

Dembele' has admitted approaching her outside the bathroom but denies pushing her into it and raping her, judicial sources said .

Dembele's arrest warrant is expected to be ratified by a preliminary investigations judge "shortly," police said .

Police issued an account of the alleged incident Wednesday .

They said one of the woman's friends challenged Dembele' after seeing how upset the student was when she came out of the bathroom .

Dembele' allegedly punched the friend and ran out of the disco near Rome's famous Piazza Navona .

The woman, who is studying art history at the Rome branch of Philadelphia's Temple University, was initially unwilling to talk about what happened in the toilet .

But her friends later prevailed on her to report the alleged rape, and police began looking for Dembele' after she was examined at Rome's Santo Spirito Hospital. The player, who was born in Paris to immigrants from the West African country of Mali, tried out at English Premier League clubs Newcastle and Leeds this summer .

He is in Italy for further trials, police said .

He had one at Serie A club Lazio last week and was heading off to Serie B's Treviso and Serie C's Perugia when he was arrested, police said. Dembele' signed for Auxerre in 2004 but did not earn a first-team place in his two years there .

The Lique 1 side, which has won the French Cup four times since 1994 and landed the league title in 1996, issued a statement Wednesday saying they released him in July "for disciplinary reasons" .



© Copyright ANSA. All rights reserved 2006-10-11

He doesn't look like a Frenchman to me





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Oh but he is... he was born there as the son to a long line of people displaced by the French in Africa and is naturalised (or in other is French because the French need him).



Knowledge is Power! Ignorance is Slavery...

He might have French citizenship. However, he is not a Frenchman. He is not one of the French people. The French people are characterized by several characteristics, the most obvious of which is their skin color. Likewise, the Nigerian people or whichever country this rapist hails from are characterized by black skin color.

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First off, What gives you the right to call him a rapist? Innocent until proven guilty and considering how many athletes have been accused of such things, I'd have my suspicions.

Just one quick question notan, what does an American look like? And what does looks have anything to do whether you consider someone a true french, dutch, candadian ect..? You seriously have a medieval mentality.



Hippies.They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.
-Cartman

Woman Raped in Club – French Footballer Jailed
Former Auxerre striker Dembélé identified by American student. Denies rape charge: “I can’t remember. I was drunk”. Three similar incidents yesterday.

http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2006/10_Ottobre/12/raped.shtml

ROME – “Are you Dembélé?” The abrupt query at the bus stop outside Termini station eliciteda “yes” from the athletic-looking man in a tight-fitting “Made in Italy” T-shirt, with a sports bag slung over his shoulder. He thought he had been recognised, perhaps by a French football fan.
BORN IN MALI – But the twenty-year-old didn’t realise that the askers were both police officers.That was how Garra Dembélé’s getaway came to an end. The Mali-born French citizen and former Auxerre striker is now in Regina Coeli prison facing a charge of rape. Flying squad officers believe Dembélé is the man who raped a twenty-year-old American student on Monday evening in the toilets of the Supper club, an exclusive nightspot between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. The episode has left Rome residents in a state of shock as a further three attacks yesterday brought the total to six in the last three days.
Garra Dembélé may not have expected to be discovered so quickly. At the time of his arrest, he was on his way to Treviso for yet another trial in his less than lucrative Italian football career, but instead meekly followed the plainclothes officers. He was taken to the police station and when he emerged from the car surrounded by officers, he little suspected that he was about to face serious criminal charges and the prospect of years in prison. Little did he imagine how much trouble was in,or just how bad his situation was. The penny finally dropped when he was in the courtyard at Via San Vitale, looking at the steps that would lead him up to the offices of the anti-rape section.When Dembélé realised his fate, he began to strugglebut it was useless.“I’ve done nothing wrong. She was up for it. We were kissing before we went into the toilets.But I don’t remember anything else.We were both drunk”. Dembélé’s protests, partly in French and partly in faltering Italian, were made to Dania Manti, the officer in charge of the sex crimes section.He was then taken to prison to await today’s detention validation hearing with the investigating magistrate Galileo D’Agostino and public prosecutor Marcello Cascini. After the American woman’s complaint, police took only a few hours to trace Dembélé, who was released by Auxerre on 1 June for disciplinary reasons.
WITNESS STATEMENTS – The clothes Dembélé was wearing on the night of the attack were seized.At the police station, the woman recognised the footballer “from a distance”. Her version of events was examined in detail, as were statements from her friends,particularly one man, who claims to have been punched by Dembélé for asking for an explanation when he saw the student crying as she came out of the toilets. After the incident, the former French football hopeful returned to his hotel at Formello, just outside Rome, packed his bags and took a taxi to the station. Dembélé was identified from one of the many lists of guests invited to Monday evening’s Black Party, an event with a black theme but open to everyone.About 200 people, plus staff, were at the party butno one noticed what was going on in the toilets.

Rinaldo Frignani

English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it


Vanessa Gravina - age 32

this is wierd as hell every time i see a rape case its a American girl who is sueing someone for rape.

"First off, What gives you the right to call him a rapist? Innocent until proven guilty and considering how many athletes have been accused of such things, I'd have my suspicions.

Just one quick question notan, what does an American look like? And what does looks have anything to do whether you consider someone a true french, dutch, candadian ect..? You seriously have a medieval mentality."

I'll answer those once this rapist is back on his side of the sahara.




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