Notorious Drug Lord "Temsamani" Extradited to Morocco After 6-Year Manhunt

His flight lasted six years. The famous drug baron "R.O", better known as "Temsamani", was arrested in Belgium in 2021, reports the Arabic-language daily Al Akhbar. His extradition to Morocco was effective a year later due to the procedures related to the bilateral conventions between the two countries.

The fugitive is a dual national. Handed over to the BCIJ elements last week at Mohammed V Airport in Casablanca, this former president of the Moghreb athletic club of Tetouan in the early 1990s, was brought before the competent prosecutor’s office near the Court of Appeal of Rabat by the elements of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ) under the General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance of Morocco (DGST). Since then, he has been incarcerated in the El Arjat prison. Prosecuted under arrest, he faces heavy sentences.

Morocco had issued arrest warrants against the suspect for drug trafficking. He would be involved in a case dating back to 2016. Several other drug barons and dozens of officials within the Royal Gendarmerie, the National Security and the Customs Administration were also involved in this case and had been sentenced at first instance and on appeal to heavy sentences, totaling 250 years.

This is not the first time this man born in 1958 has been convicted. Arrested in Spain in 2000, he had been imprisoned in the Tetouan prison as part of a major operation targeting the drug barons of the kingdom. He will be released six years later.