QPR star Ilias Chair has been jailed for a year in Belgium after fracturing a truck driver’s skull.
The midfielder, who is believed to be married and has a young son, was on Friday morning given his sentence with a 12-month suspended sentence and was also ordered to pay the victim £13,400.
He has been one of Rangers’ star players since debuting in 2017, flourishing after a loan spell with Stevenage in the 2018-19 season.
The 26-year-old has made 222 appearances for QPR in his career, including31 this season, picking up five goals and four assists in the Championship as his team fight relegation.
They will now have to do so without one of their key men, after he caused the injury on a kayaking trip four years ago.
QPR star Ilias Chair has been jailed for a year in Belgium after fracturing a bus driver’s skull
QPR released a club statement in the wake of the news, saying they will make no further comment because ‘the legal proceeding is yet to reach its conclusion’.
It was heard in the trial that Chair, alongside his brother, Jabeur, and a group of friends, had an argument with the driver in Bazeilles, France, in the summer of 2020.
Jabeur was handed a six-month suspended sentence and a £700 fine.
All those involved were waiting for a bus back to Belgium after the trip, with Antwerp’s public prosecutor telling a January hearing: ‘The consequences were dramatic for Niels T [the driver]. He suffered a severe skull fracture, two centimetres long, and was taken to hospital at Reims in critical condition.
‘Afterwards he had to recover for a long time in a Belgian hospital, and could not do his job as a lorry driver for a long time.
‘The blow was almost fatal for him, and he still feels the after-effects.’
Niels T’s lawyer added: ‘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.’
Post source: Daily mail