Murder of Badr in Casablanca: did the "rich kid" bribe a witness?

Badr Bouljoihel, a doctoral student-researcher at the Faculty of Science and Technology in Mohammedia, was killed on the night of July 30, 2023 in a McDonald’s parking lot in Aïn Diab. In a video circulated on social media, we see individuals inflicting violent blows on the 23-year-old man. One of the assailants, the owner of a large Audi Q8 4x4, gets into his vehicle to run over the young Badr. This horrible crime had shaken the upscale Aïn Diab neighborhood of Casablanca.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the accused A.R., nicknamed "Didi", was heard by the Casablanca Court of Appeal. He went back on his initial statements, claiming that he was the one driving the car that ran over the young Badr at the end of July 2023. Previously, he had stated that A.S., the main accused nicknamed "Ould Fchouch (rich kid)", was the one driving the car during the murder. A.R. also assured the judge that he did not intend to run over the young Badr. "I did not intend to run him over, but our intention was to flee and I did not see Badr lying on the ground, what I saw was just a group of people, ’the gang’ and I passed after their flight."

"Do you have a driver’s license? Do you know technically how to drive a four-wheel-drive automatic car, when you have never driven a car and you don’t have a license in the first place?" asked the lawyer for the civil party to A.R. The accused loses his composure and starts to stutter without making coherent statements. Enough to cast doubt on his statements. Has the "rich kid" bribed this accused to change his initial statements? At the end of one of the previous hearings, Fatima, Badr’s mother, claimed that the family of the main suspect was putting pressure on her to withdraw her complaint. "They offered money and property, and even sent intermediaries," she had explained.