PARIS (AP) — A brother of World Cup winner Paul Pogba was sentenced to three years in prison — two of which are suspended — by a Paris criminal court Thursday in an extortion and kidnapping case.
Mathias Pogba has already spent time in detention and the remainder of the sentence will be served under house arrest with electronic monitoring. This sentence was in line with the prosecution’s request. His lawyer said he would likely appeal the ruling.
“He is in a state of shock. From the outset, he has maintained his innocence," lawyer Mbeko Tabula said. “They did not not take into account the fact that he has been manipulated, the fact that he has been forced to do things beyond his control.”
The case in court took place without the former Manchester United and Juventus player.
A judge ordered Mathias Pogba and five other men to stand trial following an investigation into whether Paul Pogba was the target of extortion by Mathias and childhood friends in 2022.
Mathias went on trial last month “for the offenses of attempted extortion and criminal conspiracy."
The five others demanded 13 million euros ($13.6 million) from the France midfielder, who was held up at gunpoint by hooded men in March 2022. The defendants repeatedly intimidated Paul, claiming he should have supported them after he became an international soccer star. They were accused of extortion, abduction and confinement to facilitate a crime, as well as criminal conspiracy.
Roushdane K., suspected of masterminding the blackmail, was sentenced to eight years in prison. The others also received jail terms.
According to the legal documents, the court also found that Paul had suffered economic losses of 197,000 euros ($204,000) and moral losses of 50,000 euros ($52,000). It ordered all the defendants except Mathias to jointly pay this sum to the former Juve player.
During the investigation, Paul said he paid 100,000 euros ($104,000) to the organized group including his brother.
The case became public after Mathias posted threats on social media to share “explosive” revelations about his brother, fellow French star Kylian Mbappé and Paul’s agent Rafaela Pimenta. Mathias was also a soccer player who spent most of his career with lower-tier teams in Europe.
Once one of the world’s top midfielders, Paul has made the headlines in recent years more often for his off-field problems than for his sporting ability.
This month, Juventus said it came to “a mutual agreement” with Paul to cancel his contract despite the France World Cup winner having a ban for doping slashed last month. The Serie A club never seemed overly enthusiastic about welcoming Paul back after his four-year ban for doping was reduced to 18 months following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Paul will be free to resume his career in March.
Paul tested positive for testosterone in August last year and was handed the maximum punishment by Italy’s anti-doping court.
But CAS judges cut Paul’s ban as they acknowledged a lack of intent and said his positive test was the result of erroneously taking a supplement prescribed to him by a medical doctor in Florida. Paul’s contract with Juventus was set to expire in June 2026.
In 2016, Paul became the then-most expensive soccer player in history when he joined Man United from Juventus for a fee of 105 million euros ($116 million).
He starred in France’s World Cup triumph in 2018 but returned to Juventus as a free agent in 2022. Injuries limited him to just eight Serie A appearances in his second spell at the club before his ban last year.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Juventus' Paul Pogba controls the ball during an Italian Cup soccer match between Internazionale and Juventus, at the Giuseppe Meazza San Siro Stadium, in Milan, Italy, April 26, 2023. (Spada/LaPresse via AP, File)
FILE - Soccer players Mathias Pogba, left, and Paul Pogba pose for photographers upon arrival at the MTV European Music Awards 2017 in London, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017. (Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Antony Blinken pointed to the promise and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in a likely final trip to the United Nations as secretary of state, capping his engagements with the world body after a tumultuous four years that saw war return to Europe and multiple crises in the Middle East.
With the U.N. Security Council more divided than ever, Blinken is leading two meetings of the U.N.’s most powerful body on Thursday. But neither will focus on Russia’s war with Ukraine or the Middle East, where the U.S. has been frequently at odds with permanent members China and Russia and almost always in the minority when it comes to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Instead, in an apparent bid to produce a modicum of consensus, Blinken is leading Security Council sessions on AI and the conflict in Sudan, which aid agencies say has sparked a dire humanitarian crisis that has not received enough attention.
On AI, Blinken said it has the potential to do “tremendous good” but can also pose “tremendous threats to the international peace and security that this council is charged with upholding.”
Here’s a look at America's top diplomat at the U.N.:
Blinken has been appearing in person and virtually before the Security Council since March 2021, just after assuming his position as the Biden administration’s top diplomat.
In addition to several one-off council meetings, including one in February 2022 shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, Blinken has gone to New York for a week every September for the annual General Assembly gathering of world leaders.
The presidency of the Security Council rotates alphabetically every month among its 15 members. This month, it's the U.S. turn.
The country holding the presidency almost always organizes several signature events on topics its government chooses. Presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers often preside at these meetings, which ministers from other council nations are invited to attend.
Russia and China have blocked all council action condemning the invasion of Ukraine.
This has led U.S. officials to believe that a session on the topic, especially as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office with a stated goal of ending the war immediately, would likely be a waste of time.
On the Middle East, the U.S. has frequently vetoed council action condemning Israel for its tactics against Hamas in Gaza, leaving it virtually alone at the United Nations in supporting Israel.
The U.S. leads the world in developing AI technology, according to a recently released Stanford University index, and it has been in the forefront of U.N. action on AI.
In March, the first U.N. resolution on artificial intelligence was adopted by the 193-member General Assembly. Sponsored by the U.S., it gives global support to an international effort to ensure the powerful technology benefits all nations, respects human rights and is “safe, secure and trustworthy.”
Blinken noted some threats posed by AI, saying “repressive regimes are using AI-enabled surveillance to target journalists and political dissidents" and that "if algorithms are built into weapon systems, and if they malfunction, they could spark a conflict.”
“By setting rules of the road for AI we can minimize these risks, we can harness the exceptional promise of this technology,” he said.
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, recalled in early December that the previous U.S. presidency of the Security Council in August 2023 took place just months after war broke out in Sudan between rival generals heading the military and paramilitary forces.
The fighting has left tens of thousands dead, forced millions from their homes and pushed a large swath of Sudan’s population to starvation — creating an often forgotten global crisis the U.S. is seeking to spotlight.
Sudan “is facing one of the most dire humanitarian crises on the face of the planet,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters Wednesday.
“And so anything we can do to continue to work with partners at the U.N. and otherwise to shed light on that, figure out what ways we can continue to unearth and solidify humanitarian corridors and continue to push for a political solution, that’s absolutely a priority for us and we will continue to use ways to elevate that,” he said.
Blinken has represented the U.S. at the Security Council about half a dozen times at meetings ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the war in Gaza.
Russia, like the U.S. and China, is a permanent veto-holding member of the 15-nation council, and both have seats at its horseshoe-shaped table.
But apart from pointed disagreements during debates, there have been no confrontations or one-on-one meetings between Blinken and Russian diplomats at previous U.N. meetings — and there was none on Thursday.
Blinken thanked Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia after his remarks — as is custom — even though Nebenzia accused the U.S. of imposing rules on others but not abiding by them. But the Russian envoy agreed that “we cannot allow AI to dominate human beings and human values.”
It is not unusual for Blinken or other senior U.S. officials to attend international meetings and conferences where Russian officials are present, but interactions are rare.
Lee reported from Washington.
Russia UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya addresses the United Nations Security Council, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is greeted by China's UN Ambassador Fu Cong, right, in the United Nations Security Council, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gavels the meeting open as President of the United Nations Security Council, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addresses the United Nations Security Council, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, listens as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, left, delivers his remarks in the United Nations Security Council, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield is seated, upper left. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, talks with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, left, and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, right, in the United Nations Security Council, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gestures as he speaks at the Doha Forum in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday Dec. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Sayed)
FILE - Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks after meeting with the foreign ministers of the Arab Contact Group on Syria in Jordan's southern Red Sea coastal city of Aqaba, Dec. 14, 2024. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP, File)
