A Moroccan journalist who accused a leading politician of fraud was sentenced Monday to prison in a case that drew international condemnation from press freedom advocates.
Hamid Mahdaoui will serve a year and a half in prison and must pay a fine equivalent to $150,000 after being found guilty of defamation, his lawyer Mohamed Hedach told the Associated Press.
Mahdaoui, the editor-in-chief of Badil.info, was prosecuted after a complaint from the Minister of Justice Abdellatif Ouahbi. Mahdaoui had published a video on his website accusing Ouahbi of corruption and fraud, two accusations denied by the justice minister.
The charges came after the royalist Authenticity and Modernity Party, led by Ouahbi, was embroiled in controversy last year when a jailed Malian drug trafficker implicated party members in a trafficking case. sprawling drug scene that shook the North African kingdom.
Mahdaoui’s case has drawn international criticism because he is being prosecuted under the Moroccan penal code and not the press code governing the conduct of journalists.
In October, Khaled Drareni, Reporters Without Borders representative for North Africa, described the case as “a misuse of the judicial system to intimidate and silence the press.”
Mahdaoui was jailed in 2017 after publicly supporting activists who led protests against social and economic inequality. He was sentenced to three years in prison for failing to report to authorities that a Moroccan of Dutch origin had told him that weapons were being sent to protesters. He later stated that he did not report the information because he did not take the information seriously.
Morocco has been criticized in recent years for jailing journalists and activists known for criticizing the government. King Mohammed VI pardoned and released the country’s three most prominent imprisoned journalists – Omar Radi, Taoufik Bouachrine and Soulaimane Raissouni – in July.
Mahdaoui’s lawyer, Hedach, said he had not yet decided whether he would appeal Monday’s verdict.
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