BENZEMA DENIES ALLEGED LINKS TO TERRORIST GROUP, CONSIDERING LEGAL ACTION

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Karim Benzema is considering legal action after flagrantly denying allegations linking him to a terrorist organisation, reports in France have claimed.

The ex-Real Madrid forward, who penned an £86million per year move to Saudi Arabian giants Al-Ittihad this summer, was accused by France’s Interior Minister of having ‘notorious’ links to terrorist organisation The Muslim Brothers this week.

The allegations were made after Benzema took to social media to express his anger about the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel.

Benzema, a devout Muslim of Algerian descent, said he was praying for Palestinians who were suffering from Israel’s ‘unjust bombings’.

‘All our prayers for the habitants of Gaza, once again victims of these unjust bombings that spare neither women nor children,’ he wrote on his Twitter X account.

The former French international was then called out by his country’s politicians on Tuesday night, as Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin claimed on the CNews channel: ‘Mr Benzema has notorious links with the Muslim Brotherhood.’

The Muslim Brotherhood was officially classified a terrorist organisation in 2021 after Austria banned the group under the new anti-terrorism law adopted by its Parliament in July of that year.

It is also considered a terrorist organisation in Saudi Arabia, along with six other countries including Austria. The Muslim Brotherhood is, however, not recognised as a terrorist group in France.

According to Le Parisien, Benzema’s lawyer has revealed that they are considering taking legal action against the politician for both defamation and manipulation while in a position of government.

The lawyer told the French newspaper: ‘We are considering proceedings against this minister in application, for example, of the law on the manipulation of information dear to our government… and defamation or even public insult, because this non-existent link with the Muslim Brotherhood, which he says is notorious, is obviously presented as derogatory.’

It is claimed Benzema is also planning to take legal action against French MEP Nadine Morano, who also attacked his tweet by saying that it exposed him as an enemy of Israel.

Morano told CNews: ‘Just by writing that, he is an agent of Hamas propaganda because Hamas has a strategy to physically destroy Israel, but also to destroy Israel through international public opinion.’

Morano is herself notorious in France for being a far-Right polemicist who regularly attacks Islam.