Moroccan Opposition Maati Monjib Arrested for Money Laundering

Moroccan Historian and human rights defender Maati Monjib was on Tuesday arrested and will be brought before the Public Prosecutor, in a case where he is accused of “money laundering”.

Before the arrest, Maati Monji had waged several hunger strikes since 2015 to denounce the several accusations levelled against him, which according to him are “purely political” and intend to “weaken his position before national and international public opinion.”

Among the many challenges he faced was the travel ban issued against him to investigate “financial violations” in 2015. In 2019, he went on a hunger strike after the Institute of African Studies, where he teaches history, threatened to fire him. And now, he is arrested for money laundering.

The Moroccan opponent will be brought before the king’s attorney general at the Rabat Court of the first instance, “who will decide whether he will be prosecuted under arrest or be granted bail, after his hearing.”

The Financial Information Processing Unit, affiliated to the Head of Government’s Office, published a list of large financial transfers and several real estate purchases. Their value did not match the declared revenue of Maati Monjib and his family members, prompting the opening of an official investigation in early October.

In a Facebook post, Monjib says he and his family have become the victims of “defamatory financial accusations.”

“I am innocent of all these defamatory accusations,” he wrote. “The purpose of these lawsuits is to punish me because of a recent statement on the radio in which I speak of the role of the General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DGST, internal intelligence) in the repression of opponents and the management of political and media affairs in Morocco”.

As part of the trial, which was opened in 2015, Mr Monjib is being prosecuted along with six other journalists and human rights activists.

The Moroccan opponent has already received the support of several international human rights organisations that have called for the charges to be dropped.