Moroccan justice released journalist Omar Radi the day after his arrest and decided to prosecute him for “public intoxication with insults and insults”, we learned from his lawyer.
—
The prosecution decided to prosecute this journalist “for public drunkenness with insults”, said the lawyer, Miloud Kendil to AFP.
—
Currently in the midst of a double spy case, the journalist and human rights activist had been placed in police custody after an incident that occurred Sunday evening in front of a bar in Casablanca, the economic capital.
His arrest came while Moroccan justice opened an investigation against him in late June, the authorities of his country suspecting him of “links with a liaison officer from a foreign country” who worked “under diplomatic cover since 1979 in several regions of tensions “in the world.
“I have never been and will never be in the service of a foreign power (…) I am neither a spy nor an agent paid by a foreign fund,” reacted the journalist on Saturday on his Facebook account. According to him, his activities “have nothing to do with the intelligence world”.
The investigation into him was opened after the publication of an Amnesty International report that his phone was being spied on by hacking software used by the Moroccan authorities.
Rabat refuted the report by demanding that Amnesty provide “evidence” of these “serious and tendentious accusations”, threatening failing to “take the necessary measures to defend its national security”.
Amnesty believes that it has provided all the relevant evidence: “the technology used to spy on Omar Radi’s telephone requires an influence on telephone operators that only a government can exercise to be able to hack the internet connection,” the organization said. in a statement released on Saturday.
At this stage, the Moroccan authorities believe, however, that the information provided by Amnesty is not “convincing scientific evidence”, according to an official statement issued on Sunday evening.
Omar Radi, a 33-year-old journalist known for his investigative work, was sentenced to a four-month suspended prison sentence in March for criticizing a judge on Twitter.
According to Amnesty, this “courageous journalist” is harassed by the authorities of his country because of his independence.
Sunday evening, he was arrested with a friend, following an altercation with two journalists from Chouf TV who “have been tracking him, filming him and intimidating him for several days,” said his lawyer Me Kendil at AFP. .
Her friend, Imad Sitou, also known as a critical journalist. was released along with him and will be prosecuted for the same counts.
The two Chouf TV journalists involved in the incident will also be prosecuted for “insults and insults,” said the lawyer.
–
