2nd August, 2019
The lawyer for US rapper A$AP Rocky told a Stockholm court Friday his client should be “set free today,” in an assault trial over a street brawl that has caught the attention of US President Donald Trump and led fans to call for a boycott of Swedish brands like Ikea.
“It is my opinion that there is no basis to believe that the description of the crime applies to my client, (and) that he should be acquitted and set free today,” lawyer Slobodan Jovicic told the court.
Jovicic rejected the prosecution’s claim that the three accused — including the rapper whose real name is Rakim Mayers — had acted together and said his client’s actions were in self-defence.
Earlier a Stockholm prosecutor demanded a jail sentence of around six months for the new York-born US rapper.
The 30-year-old, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was arrested on July 3 along with three other people following a brawl in Stockholm on June 30, which saw him and his crew embroiled in a fight with a 19-year-old plaintiff.
His trial at Stockholm District court entered its third and expected final day on Friday, with witnesses including his bodyguard taking the stand.
Mayers earlier pleaded not guilty to assault and told the court he had acted in self-defence in the brawl, which was partly captured on videos.
But prosecutor Daniel Suneson told the court in his closing arguments that the accused did not seem “scared” like he had claimed, and argued that there was never a need for self-defence.
“The court should reach the conclusion that the assault… should have a penalty of about six months,” Suneson said.
Presiding judge Per Lennerbrant ruled Friday that a new piece of evidence submitted by the defence was allowed, overriding the prosecution’s objections.
It concerned a previous assault conviction against the plaintiff, which the defence argued spoke to the plaintiff’s reliability and previous behaviour.
Throughout the day, the court heard the testimony of two young women, the plaintiff’s friend — all present at the brawl — as well as a social worker who testified about the plaintiff’s psychological state following the incident.
One of the women revised the story she first told the police, saying she didn’t actually see the American rapper hitting a man with a bottle.
The young woman and her friend, testifying anonymously, were questioned via video link at Stockholm District Court on Friday.
Whether or not Jafari, who got into an argument with Mayers’ entourage in Stockholm, was hit with parts or a whole bottle has become one of the key issues at the trial.
Both women who testified on Friday maintained their previous statements to police that they saw Mayers and his partners beating and kicking Jafari.
But one of the women recanted what she witnessed with the bottle. She said she heard the bottle being crushed though she couldn’t say whether Mayers’ entourage threw the bottle to the ground or hit Jafari with it.
She said she didn’t see Mayers holding a bottle during the scuffle. Her friend testified that she didn’t see anyone hitting Jafari with a bottle.
“Everything happened very quickly. We were scared for our lives,” the first woman told the court in Swedish. “He (Jafari) was bleeding. He showed his injuries on his hand. He also said he had a sore back.”
The rapper’s bodyguard, Timothy Leon Williams, also testified om Friday.
Williams’ testimony closely mirrored what Mayers told the court on Thursday, adding that the situation was made more complicated by the language barriers between the rapper’s group and Jafari.
Mayers’s bodyguard was also called to the stand and testified that the plaintiff had been “harassing” and “following” the group and “swung” at him prior to the fight.
When giving his own account of the events leading up to the brawl on Thursday, the rapper stressed that he felt “scared” and that he and his entourage had repeatedly told the plaintiff to leave them alone.
Mayers conceded he threw the plaintiff to the ground and “kicked his arm”, but denied the prosecution’s claim that a bottle was used and insisted he only acted after the accuser and his friend began attacking his bodyguard.
The plaintiff has alleged that he was attacked by Mayers and his entourage when he followed them to ask about a pair of headphones that were broken in an earlier scuffle with the rapper’s bodyguard.
