Moroccan Lawmaker Among 16 Arrested in Fez Corruption Probe

Deputy Rachid El Fayek was arrested at the end of last week while he was driving his car. Fifteen other arrests also took place. Among the arrested persons, the elected official’s brother who is also a member of the RNI, president of the Fez Municipal Council, an authority auxiliary, a company manager, an elected official and a municipal civil servant. Involved in a case of corruption and embezzlement of funds, these sixteen individuals are all being prosecuted before the Chamber of Financial Crimes. On Friday, they were incarcerated in the local Bourkaiz prison in Fez.

These arrested persons all face charges of corruption, embezzlement of funds and squandering of public funds and falsification of official documents. Charges that follow the investigations carried out, for weeks, by the judicial police brigade on urban planning projects, in particular the housing program suspected of malfunctions, reports Al Akhbar. While the rightful owners had not given their consent for the realization of this project on collective lands, the local authorities gave the green light.

For the record, the general inspection of territorial administration carried out a report which highlights several dysfunctions related to non-compliance with the regulations in force: issuance of building permits on lots of land resulting from illegal subdivision and granting of authorizations to connect to the electricity network in the absence of a building permit.