Mohamed Haouas burglary trial is postponed again

The much-delayed burglary trial of French international prop Mohamed Haouas has today been postponed for a third time.

As a result, the court hearing will now not take place until January 7 2022, only three weeks before the Six Nations.

The front-rower’s lawyer Marc Gallix told AFP: “It has been put back again because the court in Montpellier realised it wasn’t holding hearings the last Friday of the month.

“Mohamed Haouas is disappointed because he wanted to be done with it. It’s getting old for him.”

The charges facing Haouas relate to the alleged burglary of a tobacconists in 2014.

The initial hearing was scheduled for January this year, but that was pushed back to May after the Montpellier prop was called up to France’s Six Nations squad.

The rescheduled hearing was then rearranged to September 24 because the courts were overwhelmed with cases.

The 27-year-old won the first of his 12 France caps against England in the 2020 Six Nations and has since quickly become a mainstay of the national side.

Haouas has a colourful back story both on and off the pitch which includes a three-week ban for punching Scotland’s Jamie Ritchie during his first Six Nations campaign.

The prop previously missed the opening Top 14 game of last season and lost his bonus after arriving late for training and having an altercation with a Montpellier sponsor.

In 2018, Haouas punched Montpellier teammate and former Springbok prop Bismarck du Plessis in a pre-match warm-up brawl which was caught on camera.

And before the tight head became a professional rugby player he had already been part of a huge free-for-all which went viral on You Tube gaining more than 1.5 million hits.

As a teenager, Haouas was arrested for a series of break-ins and robberies of corner shops and spent five years under judicial supervision. His passport was also confiscated and his movement supervised.