Alleged blackmail of the King of Morocco: French journalists defend themselves from any "criminal offense"
At the time, the affair had been widely commented on in the Moroccan press.
AFP PHOTO / FADEL SENNA
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
Two renowned journalists, Catherine Graciet and Éric Laurent, were tried on Monday January 16 for blackmail against the Kingdom of Morocco.
In 2015, while preparing a new book that promises to be explosive, they accept a financial transaction in exchange for their silence.
It remains to be seen who was actually the blackmailer.
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With our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
Mehdi Meddeb
These 9 hours of hearing will have shown that there was indeed a corrupting pact sealed on August 27, 2015 in a Parisian palace.
As Éric Laurent himself admitted at the hearing,
this case was "
a shipwreck
".
“
I dove into this Moroccan offer and I deplore
it”, also recognizes his colleague, Catherine Graciet, 48, author of books on the Maghreb and Libya.
Weakened by two strokes, armed with a cane, the 75-year-old journalist is a shadow of himself at the helm.
"
Yes, I recognize a financial transaction
", but it is in no way a "
criminal offence
", defends the former reporter for Radio France and author of numerous books.
Already authors in 2012 of a book on Mohammed VI,
The Predatory King
, the two journalists had signed a contract with Le Seuil for a second volume on the same subject.
"
A shipwreck"
"
But it's also a shipwreck for the civil party
", continues Éric Laurent, because in the summer of 2015, the one who would become the current French Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, then one of the lawyers in France of the King of Morocco, denounces a racketeering on their part.
A blackmail, abound today the new lawyers of the kingdom and ex-partners of Éric Dupond-Moretti, Antoine Vey and Ralph Boussier.
As proof, they say, two envelopes with 40,000 euros for each of the two journalists.
A sum given after several meetings by a key figure yet absent Monday: Me Hicham Naciri.
The king's lawyer is commissioned by his private secretary.
In a Parisian palace, at the end of August 2015, on a piece of paper, all three sign a memorandum of understanding: the two journalists undertake to renounce any book or information against the king and the kingdom of Morocco in return for two million euros.
Fabricated Evidence and Erased Records
This pact, none of the defendants contests it.
Because their exchanges are recorded by the French police seized by Morocco which lodged a complaint a few weeks earlier and which arrests them in flagrante delicto in the lobby of the hotel.
“
Imagine that we did not have the three recordings, that we did not have the 80,000 euros and the written and handwritten recognition of the two defendants, there it would have been complicated,
underlines Ralph Boussier, lawyer of the kingdom.
If we had wanted to negotiate, we would never have filed a complaint, you have to be lucid and logical
.
»
But why then does Hicham Naciri erase the first audios from his
iPhone
when a single
Airdrop
was enough to transfer the files, question the lawyers of the two journalists who denounce the fabrication of evidence, the absence of letters rogatory in Morocco, without denying the moral fault of the two journalists, as recognized by one of their lawyers, Éric Moutet.
“
The ethical fault, the scabrous acceptance of a sum of money against non-publication, is something they have always recognized.
There is no difficulty on that,
he pleads.
But between professional misconduct before the press card commission and blackmail before a criminal court, there is a
gap
.
»
A one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 15,000 euros were requested for each of them.
Deliberation expected in two months.
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