French Journalists Await Verdict in King Mohammed VI Blackmail Trial

Suspected of trying to blackmail the King of Morocco, Éric Laurent, 75, a former reporter for Radio France and Le Figaro Magazine, who is also a columnist for France Culture, and Catherine Graciet, 48, author of books on the Maghreb, both authors in 2012 of a book on Mohammed VI banned in Morocco, "The Predator King," will be informed of their fate tomorrow, Tuesday, March 14. During their appearance at the 10th criminal chamber in Paris on January 16, the public prosecutor had requested suspended one-year prison sentences against each of the two defendants, along with a 15,000 euro fine.

The facts attributed to the two journalists date back to the summer of 2015. Éric Laurent had a meeting with an emissary of the monarchy, the lawyer Hicham Naciri, after having contacted the private secretariat of King Mohammed VI on July 23, 2015. The meeting took place at the bar of a Parisian palace on August 11, 2015. The journalist told him of his intention to publish an explosive book on the sovereign. A financial agreement for the non-publication of the book will be proposed.

Sitting in the dock, Éric Laurent recounts: "I describe the content of the book to him," which plans to address tensions within the royal family and allegations of financial wrongdoing involving the country’s public companies. "’Me Naciri tells me: ’All that, that doesn’t suit us,’ and very quickly we shift to a transaction. It’s him who proposes it," he says. "That’s not how it happened," retorts Ralph Boussier, one of the lawyers for the Moroccan state, for whom it was indeed Éric Laurent who "mentioned an arrangement."

After this first meeting, Morocco filed a complaint in Paris. This led to the opening of an investigation. August 21, 2015: a new meeting between the two men in the same hotel. Status quo. A third - decisive - meeting will take place on August 27 in another hotel. Catherine Graciet enters the scene. She and Éric Laurent "sign a financial agreement of 2 million euros to withdraw the book project." Subsequently, the two journalists will be arrested with two envelopes each containing 40,000 euros in cash. Their arrests follow the delivery by the sovereign’s emissary of the recordings of the three meetings. "This recording is a fake," brushes aside Eric Laurent.