French Journalists Face Trial for Alleged Blackmail of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI

Initially prosecuted for "extortion of funds by threat" and for "blackmail", the investigating judges have finally dropped the first charge against the two French journalists, authors of the book "The Predator King" published in 2012 on King Mohammed VI, reports AFP which was able to access their order dated February 2. "In veiled terms, disguised under reluctance, Eric Laurent [...] threatened Mohammed VI, the royal family and the Kingdom of Morocco to reveal information likely to seriously damage the reputation of the royal family and to destabilize the regime in place, in order to obtain the payment [...] of a disproportionate and unjustified sum of money," the judges said in this order.

For Eric Laurent’s lawyers, Me William Bourdon and Me Bertrand Repolt, "as too often, the order to refer the case to the criminal court is a copy-paste of the requisition," adding that "from the beginning, a judicial mechanism has been set in motion with noise and orchestration, without any factual basis. Eric Laurent will have to be acquitted of the charge of blackmail." In the same vein, Me Eric Moutet, Catherine Graciet’s lawyer, said that his client "is delighted to be able to finally explain herself before a court after an investigation that has not demonstrated any direct participation in any blackmail whatsoever," also denouncing a "laconic and laborious demonstration supported by indirect and very fragile elements." For their part, Me Antoine Vey and Me Ralph Boussier, lawyers for Morocco, welcomed the judges’ decision, stating that it "demonstrates an extremely worrying behavior that it will be up to the court to qualify."

The case dates back to the summer of 2015, when the two French journalists had signed a second publishing contract with Le Seuil, to publish another book on the Moroccan royal family. In this context, Eric Laurent, former reporter for Radio France and Figaro Magazine, had at his request, met the lawyer Hicham Naciri, an emissary of the monarchy, to inform him of his project to publish a second "embarrassing" book on Mohammed VI. According to the journalist’s version, the emissary would have proposed a financial agreement for the non-publication of the book. False, had retorted at the time Me Eric Dupond-Moretti, then lawyer of the kingdom at the beginning of the procedure, who assured that it was rather the journalist who would have claimed two million euros to abandon the project.

Morocco filed a complaint in Paris on August 20 and an investigation was opened. But the two parties met again on August 21 and 27 to negotiate the sum of two million euros. Present at the meeting on August 27, Catherine Graciet had agreed. "I agree with the terms that Eric has stated. We are on the same wavelength," can be read in the transcript of the audio recording of the exchanges secretly made by the king’s emissary. Recordings deemed "illegal" by the defense of the two journalists who believe that they were made after the opening of the judicial investigation.