Five suspects in the Court in the drug trial ‘Escobar of the Sahara’ of Morocco | News from the world

A Moroccan court questioned on Friday to suspects in an important case of drug trafficking that has involved prominent figures, including the former head of the most successful soccer club in Morocco, an AFP journalist reported.

Since 2023, 20 people including political figures Abdenbi Bioui and said that Naciri, who also headed the Casablanca club, Wydad AC has been arrested in the case known as the “Escobar del Sahara” issue.

The case has sent shock waves through the country in North Africa, which implies a total of 25 people for positions that include “possession, marketing and export of drugs”, as well as corruption, according to prosecutors.

The trial has been postponed several times since it opened in May 2024. Bioui and Naciri have not yet appeared before a judge, and the trial will resume on February 21.

A judge of the Casablanca Criminal Court listened to five accused of drug trafficking charges after the statements they made during police investigations and prosecution questioning when the case was opened in 2023.

They were also interrogated in recorded phone calls that same year that linked them to an organized cannabis smuggling network from Morocco to Algeria and beyond, prosecutors accused.

The recordings also linked them to Bioui, prosecutors alleged.

Bioui is a businessman who previously served as the leader of the Eastern Regional Council in the name of the Authenticity and Modernity Party, which is part of the ruling coalition in Rabat.

The five defendants in court denied all the charges against him. They said they were farmers and cattle pastors and that they had no links with drug trafficking, an AFP journalist reported.

One of them, identified as Abdellah Hannafi, acknowledged having had a telephone conversation with another suspect who did not appoint and invited him to participate in drug trafficking, but said he rejected the offer.

Prosecutors have alleged links between the suspects and Hadj Ahmed Ben Ben Brahim, a Malian who serves a 10 -year prison sentence in Morocco for international drug trafficking.

Nicknamed the “Pablo Escobar del Sahara”, Ben Brahim was arrested in Casablanca in 2019 after the seizure of a record of 40 tons of cannabis resin in 2015 in trucks he possessed.

The RIF mountainous region of northern Morocco has long been an important source of illicit cannabis resin, or hashish, smuggled to Europe.

In 2021, the country in North Africa approved a law that allows the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial use in parts of the region.

ISB/Bou/Kir

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