Moroccan Engineer Arrested for Leaking ISESCO Data to Algerian Officials

The engineer is accused of having disclosed confidential information to several personalities, including the Algerian Minister of National Education, Abdelhakim Belabed. After investigation, he is said to have transmitted these sensitive data to 33 personalities who are members of ISESCO’s executive body, reports the daily Assabah. The public prosecutor’s office of the court of first instance in Rabat decided to prosecute him for death threats and several other charges. His trial will open next week. Another person is being prosecuted at large in the same case.

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The engineer’s actions were discovered by the cybercrime unit of the Rabat police headquarters in collaboration with the national digital forensics laboratory. In charge of conducting ISESCO’s videoconference meetings, the accused is said to have contacted a former Tunisian civil servant who provided him with the server access codes, allowing him to access the sensitive files that he transferred by email to the personalities and via about 30 WhatsApp groups he created. He regularly changed his phone number to avoid being caught.

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According to the DGSN technical team in charge of the investigation, the accused is said to have even sent death threats to the ISESCO director and his wife. He is also said to have defamed ISESCO officials on social media. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, the engineer still denies the facts. He does not acknowledge having provided information to the Algerian Minister of Education and refuses to answer other questions. His wife, of Tunisian origin, said she received a call from the former Tunisian civil servant who had helped her husband, confirming that he had been informed of the latter’s arrest by a personality residing in Rabat.