France arrests journalists for attempting to 'blackmail' Morocco king
France has arrested two investigative journalists over allegedly attempting to blackmail Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
Paris prosecutor’s office said Friday that Eric Laurent and Catherine Graciet remained in custody as they allegedly tried to earn three million euros (USD 3.4 million) in exchange for keeping their compromising book about the monarch unpublished.
Reports said the two were arrested late Thursday after a meeting with representatives of the Moroccan government in a restaurant in the French capital.
Eric Dupond-Moretti, a lawyer representing Mohammed VI, said the two were involved in a “thug’s racket.” According to the lawyer, Eric Laurent had said in an earlier meeting in late July that for three million euros, he would not publish the book he claimed to have co-written with Catherine Graciet.
The Moroccan government then filed a lawsuit against the two and a second meeting was arranged in which the two journalists, who did not know police was monitoring them, signed contracts and received 800,000 euros in cash.
Police then arrested the two when they were leaving the place “with the proceeds of their crime in their pockets,” Dupond-Moretti said.
“It's the first time I've ever seen someone, who says they're a journalist, openly conduct bribery against the state – it's outrageous,” Dupond-Moretti told RTL radio, adding that there may be some links between the case and terrorism, without elaborating on the nature of such a connection.
Laurent and Gracie had written Le Roi prédateur (The Predator King), in 2012, a book which claimed to be exposing a “royal plundering” and how Mohammed VI monopolized the Moroccan economy in an arbitrary and corrupt fashion.
Journalists have in the past been jailed in Morocco for criticizing the king, a self-declared reformist, who acceded to the throne in 1999.
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