French prosecutors have opened an investigation into alleged cyberbullying of Algerian Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif.
The 25-year-old athlete was at the centre of a gender controversy during the Paris Olympic Games.
Khelif won the women’s 66kg final against China’s Yang Liu in a unanimous points decision.
The probe, launched on Tuesday, will look into “cyberharassment” following the high-profile row, the Paris public prosecutor’s office told AFP.
Ms Khelif’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, said last week that she had filed a complaint for online harassment, describing it as a “fight for justice”.
The Central Office for Combating Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes has been tasked with the investigation.
According to US magazine Variety, billionaire Elon Musk and author JK Rowling have been named in the complaint. Former US President Donald Trump is also reportedly part of the investigation.
Ms Khelif won gold in the women’s 66kg final, having faced intense scrutiny during the Olympics.
She and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were disqualified from last year’s world championships after failing gender eligibility testing. However, both were cleared to compete in Paris.
However they were cleared to compete in Paris, setting the stage for one of the biggest controversies of the Games.
The controversy escalated after Ms Khelif won her bout against Italy’s Angela Carini in 46 seconds.
Mr Trump said he would “keep men out of women’s sports”, while his running mate JD Vance described the bout as a “grown man pummelling a woman in a boxing match”.
Ms Rowling said on X that the Paris Olympics would be “forever tarnished by the brutal injustice done to Carini”.
The International Boxing Association’s president, Umar Kremlev, claimed that Ms Khelif and Ms Lin had undergone “genetic testing that shows that these are men”.
Ms Khelif has maintained that she is “a woman like any other”.
“I was born a woman, lived a woman and competed as a woman,” she told reporters about her eligibility.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the organisation would consider reviewing the gender issue if presented with “a scientifically solid system” to identify men and women.
Ms Khelif received a hero’s welcome upon returning to Algeria, with crowds cheering her at Algiers airport.
