French Lawmaker Mustapha Laabid Loses Appeal in Embezzlement Case

The deputy of Moroccan origin had been splashed by an embezzlement case, for which he had been convicted in 2019 by the Rennes Criminal Court. According to the court, the man had used the bank card of the integration association he was running for personal purposes. Mustapha Laabid acknowledges "globally some errors, perhaps even faults," reports Sud Ouest.

But he points out that the investigators are not right about the amount indicated. As in the first instance, he assures during the appeal trial that he did not intend to misappropriate the money. "That would mean that I did it knowingly and with the aim of feeding myself. That’s not the case." At the time of the facts, he was an employee of the Fondation agir contre l’exclusion and earned "a little less than 3,000 euros per month".

The day after his election as a deputy, the Intermed Collective was dissolved. The investigators highlight several cases of irregularities. The association no longer has anything in the coffers, even though it received 96,000 euros in public subsidies between 2015 and 2017. Yet no trace of organized events. No trace on social networks, on bank accounts, on the seized computer. "If I had hired an accountant, I wouldn’t be here in front of you," he defends himself, apologizing again for a "lack of rigor," the newspaper indicates.

The deputy denounces a persecution. "It is very vexing to hear today that the association has never done the job. There is not a single elected official in Rennes, nor a single associative actor who does not know my work and my name." But the public prosecutor was not moved by the arguments of the elected official. Éric Sévère-Jolivet points out that it is "shocking that funds intended for social purposes are diverted from their objective to end up in the pocket of the person concerned." He emphasizes that "no repayment has been made." He hopes that the judges will follow his requisition which is 6 months suspended prison sentence, 10,000