Another blow for the networks of Moroccan services in Europe. A Moroccan national is on trial in Germany for spying on Hirak du Rif activists on behalf of his country’s intelligence services. Arrested last November in Cologne and imprisoned since, the suspect has been on trial since Monday, July 24, before the Düsseldorf court.
Justice has evidence that the man, identified as Mohamed A., 36, had collected between April 2021 and March 2022 information on sympathizers living in Germany of the protest movement in the Rif region.
According to German media, the suspect confessed to investigators that he had given information to Moroccan services for compensation of 5,000 euros.
The Hirak du Rif is a popular protest movement that shook Morocco in 2016 and 2017. Caused by the death of a fish merchant who was crushed in a dumpster, while trying to save his goods seized by the police, the protest turned over the weeks into a structured movement carrying social and political demands.
Moroccan spy tried in Germany
The movement was harshly repressed by the Moroccan authorities and its leaders were sentenced to heavy prison terms. Its leader, Nasser Zefzafi, was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
Mohamed Adjroud, a Rifain in charge of spying on his compatriots in Germany on behalf of Moroccan services
Many activists and sympathizers, however, remained active in exile and it was they whom Mohamed A. was instructed to spy on.
The Moroccan journalist exiled in Spain, Ali Lmrabet provided further details on this case. According to him, the full identity of the suspect is Mohamed Adjroud. He was recruited by the Moroccan consulate in Düsseldorf, which instructed him to follow the activities of Moroccan opponents settled in Germany, in particular the militants and sympathizers of Hirak du Rif, being himself a native of this Berber-speaking region in the north of the kingdom. . This is what he would have recognized in front of the German police.
The journalist assures that, a few weeks before his arrest, Adjroud had come to the European Parliament to spy on the activity of Moroccan activists. “ That day, he took the opportunity to film my entire intervention ”, testifies on Twitter Ali Lmrabet, who promises other revelations about this individual.
According to the German media WDR, the accused had already been in prison in Belgium for drug trafficking. In this case, he risks up to 5 years in prison, continues the same source.
This case risks further tarnishing the image of Morocco, already battered by several such scandals in recent years, the most resounding of which is the dismantling, in December 2022, of a network of corruption of MEPs set up by the DGED. Moroccan.
