Appeals court frees Booba and Kaaris, who have been jailed on remand for three weeks, ahead of their trial

Two French rap stars who have been in jail on remand for three weeks after they sparked a mass brawl at Paris’s Orly airport have been freed on bail ahead of their trial next month.

The punch-up at the start of August in the airport terminal between two of France’s most successful rappers, Booba and Kaaris, saw passengers scurry for safety. Other passengers took videos on their mobile phones as the stars and their minders lashed out at each other and crashed through cosmetics stands in a duty-free shop.

The airport terminal was temporarily shut due to the brawl and some flights were delayed. Airport authorities and the duty-free shop said thousands of euros in damage had been caused.

The two rappers, who once worked together but became sworn enemies in one of French rap’s longest-running feuds, were on their way to Barcelona and said they had not known they were to be on the same flight. They were arrested and jailed on remand along with eight others from their entourages.

But both had argued that a court’s decision to jail them until their fast-tracked trial on 6 September was extreme and out of proportion. State lawyers had insisted they should remain in prison on remand, but an appeals court on Thursday said the rappers and members of their entourages could be released on bail. They cannot leave France and must not contact each other.

Both men had been placed in solitary cells. Booba, 41, whose real name is Élie Yaffa, was sent to the notorious Fleury-Mérogis prison south of Paris, a supersize decaying concrete mega-jail which is Europe’s largest prison. Kaaris, 38, whose real name is Okou Gnakouri, was sent to Fresnes.

After pictures of Kaaris in prison appeared on social media, a prison inquiry was opened and searches lead to the confiscation of several phones in the prison, including one found in his cell.

At a hearing their lawyers said the rappers, who are both fathers, were people in a “stable situation” who should not be in prison.

The rappers had expressed their regret at the fight and promised to be “irreproachable” while awaiting their trial. Booba’s lawyer, Yann Le Bras, told the hearing that the “deplorable” punch-up was akin to something from the “playground”.

Kaaris’s lawyer, Yassine Yakouti, argued the case had to be put into its proper context and proportion, and not seen in terms of the men’s fame. He argued that by jailing them on remand, the court in Créteil had acted as a kind of “voice for social media and rolling news”.