Moroccan Journalist Omar Radi’s 6-Year Prison Sentence Upheld on Appeal

The Casablanca Court of Appeal thus confirmed the heavy sentence handed down at first instance. Radi, a 35-year-old independent journalist, has insisted on his innocence throughout his two-year trial.

The human rights defender was prosecuted for "undermining the internal security of the State" with "foreign financing" and for "rape" in two separate cases, investigated and tried jointly.

His trial began in 2020, just days after the human rights group Amnesty International said Moroccan authorities had placed the Pegasus spyware on his mobile phone, a claim repeatedly denied by Morocco.

The arrest and detention of Radi have been condemned by human rights activists, intellectuals and politicians both inside the country and abroad. The prosecution had requested on Tuesday "the maximum sentence against the accused in view of the incriminating elements." The rape charge is punishable by ten years in prison.

The other journalist Imad Stitou, 32, was sentenced to one year in prison, including six months in prison, in the same rape case. He had initially been presented as the only witness for the defense before being prosecuted while at liberty during the investigation. Tried in absentia, Omar Stitou has left Morocco for Tunisia.