Acquitted in Morocco, this Moroccan-born Dutchman is still in prison four years later

Seddik Errais’s legal ordeal nevertheless appeared to have turned in his favor on January 4, 2022. On that day, the criminal chamber of the Marrakech Court of Appeal acquitted him in one of the most high-profile criminal cases of recent years in Morocco.

The Moroccan-born Dutchman was suspected of having acted as coordinator in the shooting at the La Crème café, which took place on November 2, 2017, in Marrakech. Two masked men riding a motorcycle opened fire on the terrace. Their presumed target was the establishment’s owner, but the gunfire killed Hamza Chaib, a 26-year-old medical student who had nothing to do with the settling of scores. Two other people were injured.

On Bladi.net : Marrakech Café Shooting: Key Suspect Acquitted in High-Profile Case

At the time of his involvement in the Moroccan case, Seddik Errais was already imprisoned in Spain in a cocaine-trafficking case. The Spanish authorities extradited him to Morocco in 2019. He was then being prosecuted notably for complicity in premeditated murder, complicity in attempted murder and membership in an organized criminal gang.

The prosecution attributed to him the role of intermediary between the alleged masterminds and several people tasked with preparing the operation in Marrakech. Errais has always disputed this version. When he was acquitted in 2022, the court notably considered that his friendly relationship with one of the alleged masterminds was insufficient to establish his participation in the acts.

An acquittal that did not bring the case to an end

This decision did not, however, definitively close the judicial case. The La Crème case saw several twists and turns before the Moroccan courts, notably with the intervention of the Court of Cassation and a new examination of the case in Casablanca. In January 2026, the Casablanca Court of Appeal once again issued a new decision concerning several protagonists in the case.

Errais’s personal situation is now being brought back into the spotlight by the Dutch press. According to the daily AD, he was ultimately convicted and is still behind bars. The newspaper describes him as being detained in one of Morocco’s harshest prisons, alongside, among others, people convicted of terrorism and criminals considered dangerous.

In total, he has been deprived of his freedom for nearly nine years, first in Spain and then in Morocco. This period therefore does not entirely correspond to detention in Morocco, nor solely to the La Crème case: before his extradition, he was serving a sentence in Spain related to cocaine trafficking.

Errais, for his part, maintains that he never knew anything about the planned attack. “My tears are exhausted, and so am I. What have I done?” he says today from prison, while continuing to deny having taken part in preparing the shooting.

On Bladi.net : Shooting in Marrakech (La Crème): Death penalty for the two Dutch killers

The two men identified as the direct perpetrators of the attack face a different situation. Their death sentences were upheld on January 12, 2026, by the Casablanca Court of Appeal. Several other sentences were reduced, however, including that of the café owner, which was reduced from fifteen to ten years in prison.

For Seddik Errais, the point that continues to fuel questions in the Netherlands is therefore this succession of decisions: presented as a coordinator of the attack, he was acquitted in 2022 for lack of evidence deemed sufficient to establish his involvement, before being convicted again following the case’s subsequent developments. Four years after that acquittal, he remains in prison and continues to assert that he played no role in the murder committed by mistake at the La Crème café.