Moroccan ex-minister who defended government critics sentenced to five years

RABAT, Morocco — Mohamed Ziane, an ex-Moroccan minister of human rights, was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday in a corruption case that his attorney described as retribution for outspokenness and work defending political prisoners.

An appeals court in Rabat handed down the sentence after a hearing in which the frail 81-year-old Ziane — once known for his loud and combative rhetoric — was silent as a form of protest.

The court had earlier found him and two other colleagues guilty of corruption and embezzling from their political party during Morocco’s 2015 election campaign.

Ali Reda Ziane — his attorney who is also his son — strenuously denied the charges faced by his father and his two colleagues. He said the court had not followed typical procedures in the case or any of its appeals, all 17 of which the defense lost.

He also linked the proceedings to his father’s defense of journalists and activists who had faced charges for unrelated offenses after criticizing the government.

“It means freedom of expression has been curtailed in Morocco,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday.

The verdict marks the latest development in one of the freedom of expression cases that has drawn condemnation from Morocco’s international allies and human rights organizations. It supplements a three-year sentence issued in 2022, in which Ziane was found guilty of 11 charges including defamation, adultery, sexual harassment and insulting a public official.

In a statement Sunday, the Moroccan Association In Support of Political Prisoners called the charges arbitrary and the proceedings unfair. The group described the case against Ziane as “purely political, aiming to humiliate and subjugate the man and discourage him from expressing his opinions.”

Ziane was among those profiled in a 2022 Human Rights Watch report on how Morocco has harshly cracked down on the freedom of expression of those critical of its government.

“Moroccan authorities, since the mid-2010s, have increasingly accused and prosecuted high-profile journalists and activists of non-speech crimes, including crimes involving consensual sex,” the report said.

Morocco’s government dismissed the report as biased and said it was full of false allegations. The government spokesperson did not respond to questions about Ziane’s sentencing on Monday.

The report documented how authorities convicted one of Ziane’s sons for hiding a witness and obstructing justice after a woman scheduled to testify in a human rights case that Ziane was defending slept at their home for security reasons before having to appear in court.

It also chronicled how pro-government media published leaked images and videos — including ones showing nudity — and suggested Ziane was engaged in an affair with a client. His son and attorney told The Associated Press that the legal complaints filed against him began after he accused Morocco’s intelligence services of being behind the leak — a charge the country’s Interior Ministry denied.

In 2023, Amnesty International said Ziane’s legal troubles were based on “bogus charges that stem from his work defending activists, journalists and victims of human rights abuses.”

Those who Ziane has defended as an attorney include Taoufik Bouachrine, the former editor of the independent Arabic language daily newspaper, Akhbar Al-Youm, and Nasser Zefzafi, an activist who helped lead an anti-government protest movement in northern Morocco’s Rif region last decade.

Bouachrine is currently serving a 15-year sentence for human trafficking, blackmail and sexual misconduct. Zefzafi is serving a 20-year sentence for undermining public order and threatening national unity.

Ziane’s defense of both men followed decades of human rights activism that began after he resigned as Morocco’s Human Rights Minister, a position he served in from 1996 to 1997. After serving as president of the Rabat Bar Association, he began defending activists and journalists critical of the government in 2017, becoming a rare dissenting voice who had once served in Morocco’s government.