Trial of rapper Freeze Corleone for advocating terrorism: 18 months in prison required

His words were particularly shocking. The prosecution requested an 18-month suspended prison sentence and a 50,000 euro fine against the rapper Freeze Corleone, who was absent this Monday from his trial for advocating terrorism before the Nice criminal court.

The prosecution relates to the song “Haaland”, a duet with the German rapper Luciano, where Freeze Corleone seems to identify with the author of the attack of July 14, 2016 which left 86 dead and hundreds injured on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

Even if the name of the famous avenue is not pronounced, it is suggested by the rhymes and the silence which follows the interrupted sentence: “In defense I’m Kalidou, you’re Lenglet. Burberry like an English grandfather. I arrive in rap like a truck that bombs hard on the…”.

Issa Lorenzo Diakhaté – the real name of the 33-year-old rapper – chose silence during the investigation and did not come to the trial because he is being prosecuted for words he did not say and because he received threats if he came to Nice, said his lawyer, Me Adrien Chartron.

A frustrating decision for the civil parties – associations and victims of the attack – who would have liked him to at least agree to listen to them. Like Hager ben Aouissi, president of an association supporting the child victims of the attack, now adolescents or young adults, the audience of Freeze Corleone: “I can’t believe that we can glorify their nightmares (…). Terrorism must not be an image of power, it cannot be a figure of speech.”

“A nauseating ideological background”

“Art can and must shake us up,” acknowledged the Nice public prosecutor, Damien Martinelli, referring to rappers who know how to put “sometimes violent words on sometimes forgotten social realities.” But by evoking other questionable words from Freeze Corleone, he denounced “a nauseating ideological background and a desire to provocate in a mercantile logic”, considering that the accused was “the Dieudonné of French rap”.

“It’s the trial of style,” regretted Me Chartron, adding: “We can do it for practically all rappers.”

Dropped by his label Universal Music after a first investigation in 2020 for provocation of racial hatred, finally closed, he has given up performing in concert since a cascade of prefectural cancellations following the opening of the Nice investigation at the beginning of 2024.

But the Internet remains a powerful vector of influence and income: the album “The Phantom Menace”, from which the duet “Haaland” is taken, recorded 5.2 million plays on Spotify in the 24 hours after its release, recalled the prosecutor.

The court posted its decision on April 27.