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Karim Benzema in action for France against Denmark in the Nations League. Image Credit: AFP

Paris: Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema has dropped a court appeal against a one-year suspended sentence for complicity in a bid to blackmail a former France teammate with a sex tape, his lawyer said Saturday.

“This withdrawal endorses a ruling of condemnation and apparently of guilt. It is a judicial truth. But it is not reality,” lawyer Hugues Vigier told French sports daily L’Equipe.