Författare anklagas för att ha utpressat Marockos kung
Franska författarna Éric Laurent och Catherine Graciet kommer att ställas inför rätta misstänkta för att ha utpressat Marockos kung Mohammed VI, rapporterar AFP.
Enligt anklagelserna ville de ha miljontals euro i utbyte mot att publiceringen av en bok om den marockanska kungafamiljen stoppades. De greps i augusti 2015 efter möte med en representant för hovet med kuvert med kontanter i.
Laurent och Graciet, som skrev sin första bok om marockanska hovet 2012, menar att kungens medarbetare erbjöd dem pengar för att stoppa publiceringen, något kungens stab förnekar.
bakgrund
Catherine Graciet
Wikipedia (en)
Catherine Graciet is a French journalist known for her work on the finance and geopolitics of the oil business, and for her work on Morocco and its government.
bakgrund
Éric Laurent
Wikipedia (en)
Éric Laurent (born 1947) is a French journalist known for his work on the finance and geopolitics of the oil business and for his work on Morocco and its government.
According to Edwin McDowell, writing in the "Book Notes" column of The New York Times, Pierre Salinger and Éric Laurent's 1991 book Secret Dossier: The Hidden Agenda Behind the Gulf War, was "already a best seller in France" at the time, and that the book "contends that the United States Government helped undercut efforts by King Hussein of Jordan to find a nonmilitary solution after President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. It also claims to show how war could have been avoided." According to Aurelian Breeden, writing for The New York Times, Laurent has "established a reputation" as a "fierce critic" of the Moroccan leadership. Per the same source, he was arrested in August 2015 (along with co-author Catherine Graciet) for allegedly accepting a bribe to not publish books about the Moroccan leadership ever again. Both authors "do not deny that a financial transaction took place", but that it was either "a trap" or "a private transaction."
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