A Moroccan court on Monday sentenced activist Fouad Abdelmoumni to six months in prison for “spreading false allegations” and other charges related to a post he had shared on Facebook, said his lawyer.
Abdelmoumni, a human rights advocate, was taken into custody in late October after alleging online that Morocco had spied against France, but released after a two-day detention.
His lawyer, Mohamed Nouini, told AFP that Abdelmoumni will only be imprisoned if a higher court upholds Monday’s verdict issued in Casablanca.
“He should have been prosecuted under the Press Code, which does not provide for prison sentences, rather than the Penal Code,” Nouini said.
The charges against Abdelmoumni include “spreading false allegations”, “defamation” and “insulting public bodies”.
In his Facebook post last year, Abdelmoumni echoed accusations of Moroccan espionage against France.
“France, which sees its position decline among all nations, would not want to give in to the blackmail of a weak state which uses all the means of pressure at its disposal… including espionage,” Abdelmoumni wrote at the time.
Prosecutors argued that his statements constituted “allegations harmful to the kingdom’s interests” and went “beyond the limits of freedom of expression, amounting to criminal offences punishable by law”.
Abdelmoumni shared the post during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, which had marked a thawing of diplomatic ties between Rabat and Paris after three years of strained relations, partially over the espionage allegations.
In 2021, Morocco was accused of deploying Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to monitor prominent figures including Macron.
The allegations were based on a report by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and rights group Amnesty International, which Morocco called “baseless and false”.
The spyware, developed by Israeli firm NSO Group, can infiltrate mobile phones, extracting data and activating cameras.
