Morocco Blocks Extradition of Crypto Kidnapping Suspect to France

Badiss Mohamed Bajjou "cannot be handed over by Morocco to France to explain himself before the latter’s justice system," states Zakaria Mrini, a lawyer and president of the Moroccan Association of Young Lawyers, to Libération. What fate, then, awaits the Franco-Moroccan? "The Moroccan Code of Criminal Procedure provides that any act qualified as a crime by Moroccan law and committed outside the kingdom by a Moroccan can be prosecuted and judged in Morocco," he explains. But it is not excluded that he may serve a potential sentence in French prisons. If he is convicted in Morocco, he could be transferred to France to serve his sentence, explains Mohamed Aghnaj, a criminal lawyer in Casablanca, noting that the two countries signed a convention in 1981 allowing for the transfer of prisoners.

Moreover, the application of the convention to persons with dual French and Moroccan nationality became possible after an amendment dating from 2007. "It remains a question of sovereignty on Morocco’s part," comments lawyer Aghnaj. His colleague Mrini sees it as "a possibility, but a very complicated one."