Prosecution demands three year jail sentence for rapper Ali B

Public prosecutors have demanded a jail sentence of three years for two charges of rape and one of sexual assault against rapper and television presenter Ali B.

The 42 year old from Almere, whose full name is Ali Bouali, is the only man at the centre of a “me too” scandal at television talent show The Voice of Holland to face charges.

A new witness came forward in the middle of court hearings this week andnow the prosecution has now presented its case. “The suspect has taken no responsibility, has made false statements and lays the blame elsewhere,” said the OM in statement.

It charges the rapper with assaulting three women between 2014 and 2018. One is a woman who claims that Bouali assaulted and raped her during a writers’ camp in Heiloo in August 2018, when she was 20.

Another is a female participant in The Voice of Holland in 2013. The prosecution says that when they later met at an event in 2018, he invited her to his car so that she could play him “one” of her songs but drove her to a deserted forest track and assaulted her.

The third is an alleged rape of a 47-year-old woman during the making of a television show in Morocco in April 2014. The prosecution says there is no reason to doubt the women’s testimony.

A report on YouTube channel Boos in early 2022 claimed several dozen women had been harassed and abused by men behind the scenes at The Voice of Holland. After the broadcast, the public prosecution appealed for victims to come forward and started a formal investigation.

“Although the suspect presents himself as a victim of changing social norms, or more prudish social sexual morality, the prosecution does not agree,” the OM added. “The suspect’s behaviour occurred well before the rise of the ‘me too’ movement and the Boos programme, was already wrong, is wrong today, and will be wrong in the future.”

Bouali denies all charges. He will present his case later on Friday.