Queens Park Rangers star Ilias Chair has been jailed for breaking a truck driver’s cranium with a rock.
The Morocco worldwide joined QPR from Belgians Lierse in 2017 and has impressed throughout his time within the Championship. But he was sentenced to a 12 months in jail, with an extra 12 months suspended, in his dwelling city of Antwerp on Friday morning.
The courtroom additionally ordered Chair, 26, to pay his sufferer £13,400 compensation for his accidents. It comes as an enormous blow to QPR, who at the moment discover themselves amidst a relegation battle to League One.
Chair, his brother Jaber and a few buddies bought into an argument with a trucker in Bazeilles, northern France, in the summertime of 2020, the courtroom heard. They, together with the driving force, named solely as Niels T, had been ready to catch a bus again to Belgium following a kayaking journey.
Antwerp’s public prosecutor instructed a listening to in January: “According to many individuals concerned, Ilias Chair lashed out at Niels T with a stone and knocked him unconscious.
“The consequences were dramatic for Niels T. He suffered a severe skull fracture, two centimetres long, and was taken to hospital at Reims in critical condition.
“Afterwards he needed to get better for a very long time in a Belgian hospital, and couldn’t do his job as a lorry driver for a very long time. “The blow was almost fatal for him, and he still feels the after-effects.”
Chair, who was born in Antwerp, has 12 caps for Morocco and represented the African nation as they made the World Cup semi-finals in 2022. His brother, Jaber, acquired a six-month suspended jail time period in addition to a £700 superb for his position within the assault.
Niels T’s lawyer commented: “My client almost lost his life, and it took surgeons to save him. He was unable to work for a long time, and still suffers adverse reactions every day to having been hit with a rock.”