RABAT – Prominent Moroccan journalist and human rights activist Omar Radi appeared in court yesterday, said his lawyer, after being detained several months earlier on accusations of espionage.
Radi was placed in pretrial detention in July on charges of receiving foreign funds for the purpose of harming “state security”, said the Justice Ministry at the time.
The investigation into his purported receipt of foreign funds began in late June, a day after an Amnesty International report alleged that software developed by Israeli security firm NSO Group was used to insert spyware into Radi’s mobile phone.
The 34-year-old is also accused separately of rape.
Lawyer Miloud Kandil said Radi appeared yesterday in the criminal chamber of the Casablanca appeals court over the espionage case.
Radi professed his innocence, and said his foreign dealings under investigation were “purely professional and connected to his work as a journalist”, said Kandil.
He declined to provide further details.
Moroccan authorities have described Amnesty’s accusation as “tendentious”.
In July, Radi’s supporters released a video in which he dismissed the spying accusation as “ridiculous” and a form of revenge following the Amnesty report.
Radi and Souleimane Raissouni, another detained journalist, held a 24-hour hunger strike earlier this month to “protest their stay in preventive detention without sentencing”, according to a statement released by the duo’s supporters.
Raissouni, the chief editor of independent daily Akhbar Al-Yaoum, has been detained since late May.
His lawyer in July said the 48-year-old is under investigation for charges of “indecent assault” against another man.
His supporters have alleged that his case is part of a campaign of defamation targeting journalists and rights activists critical of Moroccan authorities.
Raissouni, too, proclaimed his innocence. – AFP, December 25, 2020
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