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Human Rights Groups Slam Moroccan Whistleblower's Sentence
RABAT, Aug 29 (News Agencies) - Two Moroccan based human rights organizations on Wednesday condemned the sentencing of former Moroccan secret agent Ahmed Boukhari to one year's imprisonment for writing bad checks , saying it was designed to hide the truth about human rights abuses in the Arab Muslim nation.
The Moroccan Association of Human Rights described Boukhari's trial as "scandalous" and said it was designed to "pervert the course of justice" and to "prevent the exposure of the truth about kidnapping, torture, illegal imprisonments and the physical liquidation of militants, including [opposition leader] Mehdi Ben Barka."
Boukhari was sentenced by a Casablanca court Tuesday to one year in jail for writing four bad checks and was also fined 150,000 dirhams (13,800 dollars).
The checks had been made out in the name of a company run by Boukhari that later went bankrupt.
Immediately after the sentence was passed, his lawyer Abderrahim Jamai announced the former secret agent would appeal.
The Forum for Truth and Justice described the sentence as an attempt to silence "a man who has made extremely serious revelations on the violations of human rights and named names of those involved."
Boukhari's arrest followed a series of new revelations he had made about the 1965 kidnapping, torture and murder of Ben Barka - a former leader of Morocco's Socialist Union of Popular Forces - at the hands of Moroccan government officials, including the interior minister at the time, General Mohammed Oufkir.
Boukhari told French daily newspaper Le Monde and Morocco's Le Journal that Ben Barka was kidnapped in Paris and tortured to death by Moroccan government officials before his body was shipped back to Morocco, with French complicity, to be dissolved in a cauldron of acid.
Jamai said his client had already served more than a year in prison on a 1998 conviction concerning two of the checks and that he should not have been tried twice for the same offense.
He expressed concern about trial process that he claimed was riddled with irregularities.
"The truth makes (people) afraid, but even in prison he will continue to speak out," said Jamai.
Referring to a separate investigation into Ben Barka's death by French judge Jean-Baptiste Parlos, Jamai said he did not think his client would be able to attend since the authorities had seized his passport.
On Wednesday, Boukhari, who on August 22 launched a hunger strike in protest, decided to end his fast pending the appeal process.
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