Rugby. Mohamed Haouas remanded in custody for domestic violence

Mohamed Haouas, pillar of the XV of France of rugby, was placed in pre-trial detention on Sunday pending his trial for domestic violence on Tuesday in Montpellier.

“The judge decided on a provisional basis to place him in detention,” said Marc Gallix, the player’s adviser who had been taken into custody on Friday evening after violence against his wife on the public highway in Montpellier. Violence for which the latter did not file a complaint, said the lawyer.

Mohamed Haouas “has a judicial record”, conceded Marc Gallix, before adding: “The major issue on Tuesday is that I manage to get him out of prison”.

Up to three detention

The MHR player will be tried in immediate appearance by the Montpellier Criminal Court, before which he faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

The Montpellier colossus (1.85 m, 123 kg), who will join the Clermont club at the start of the next school year for three seasons, could see his chances of participating in the 2023 Rugby World Cup (September 8-October 28) further compromised by this new affair, while the list of 42 players selected for the World Cup must be announced on June 21.

According to a source familiar with the matter, an argument broke out on Friday between the international (16 selections) and his wife in front of the shopping center where the latter works. “He gave her a brush (kicked at the ankle to make someone fall), she fell and he hit her in the face”, added the same source, pointing out that several people had been witnesses to the scene, also captured by CCTV cameras.

Already known to justice

“If they are established, the acts of domestic violence alleged against Mohamed Haouas are unacceptable”, reacted Saturday in a tweet the Minister of Sports and the Olympics Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.

Aged 29, married and father of two children, Mohamed Haouas has already experienced the bench of the defendants of the Montpellier judicial court twice, for acts committed in his youth, almost ten years ago.

In February 2022, he received an 18-month suspended prison sentence for his role in burglaries in 2014, when he was not yet a professional rugby player.

On May 12, he appeared for “aggravated violence” and “destruction of the property of others committed in a meeting”, facts also dating from 2014 and for which the deliberation is expected on June 30.

Appearing like a meteorite within the XV of France at the beginning of the era of coach Fabien Galthié, quickly indisputable holder, Haouas then fell back in the hierarchy of the pillars of the XV of France due to less successful sports performances but also to blows of blood that earned him two red cards.