Moroccan Plastic Surgeon Faces Victims in Human Trafficking Case

A confrontation between Dr. El Hassan Tazi and four other people involved with him in a case of fraud and human trafficking, on the one hand, and the alleged victims, on the other hand, begins this Wednesday, April 27, before the investigating judge at the Casablanca Court of Appeal. Each of them will be heard. Several donors, including the daughter of a senior official in the current government, but also the general manager of a major retail chain, a Bank Al Maghrib executive and one of Morocco’s most famous caterers, are on the list of alleged victims, reports H24info. There are also patients who have undergone, or have been promised, "free" surgical operations and whose photos would have been used for dubious purposes, who will also be heard.

Dr. Hassan Tazi continues to proclaim his innocence. In a recent statement to the investigators, he claimed that he did not know that needy patients had been photographed, and that their images had been used for financial purposes, because his work was only carried out in the diagnostic room and in the operating room of plastic surgery, reported the Arabic-language newspaper Al Ahdath Al Maghribia. "Everything administrative and financial" is managed by his wife and brother, also prosecuted under arrest, he said.