Spanish Newspaper El Mundo Fined for False Spy Claims Against Moroccan Company

In its "Crónica" supplement published in June 2019, the newspaper El Mundo published a report on a judicial investigation into an alleged misappropriation of Moroccan state subsidies. According to the publication, public money would have been diverted and transferred to personal accounts belonging to "spies" or persons linked to the Moroccan intelligence services. The article also pointed out that "front companies" were created to "launder" this money.

In the report in question, a travel agency located in Mataró and partly owned by the wife of the president of the Union of Islamic Cultural Centers of Catalonia (UCCIC) would be the "phantom" company created to launder the money. The publication claimed that the president of the UCCIC had received subsidies of more than two million euros per year from the Moroccan Ministry of Islamic Affairs that would have been diverted "to his bank account, that of his wife and the travel agency".

The travel agency filed a complaint against the newspaper El Mundo and its editor-in-chief for defamation and attack on its honor and reputation before the Mataró court, which acquitted the newspaper, considering that "although inaccurate data were published, the information is, in its entirety, truthful" and was supported by evidence.

But the Barcelona court, considering that the travel agency has its own legal personality distinct from the persons who received the subsidies from Morocco and that the personal and commercial relationships between the partners and these persons "do not justify that the alleged criminal acts of the latter be attributed to the company", condemned the newspaper to jointly and severally indemnify the company with 1 euro, to remove the publication and to publish a new one on paper and in digital version on the subject.