On August 27th, French journalists Éric Laurent and Catherine Graciet were arrested by police as they left the plush Hotel Raphael, close to the avenue des Champs-Elysées in central Paris. They were immediately detained for questioning by police and subsequently placed under investigation (a legal status one step short of being charged) for attempting to blackmail and extort funds from King Mohammed VI of Morocco.
The pair had just left a meeting at the hotel bar with a lawyer representing the Moroccan monarch, about whose regime they had jointly written a highly critical book in 2012 entitled Le Roi prédateur, (The Predator King).
Laurent, 68, and Graciet, 41, had allegedly demanded a payment of 3 million euros in return for abandoning the publication of a new book they were preparing which they said contained embarrassing revelations about the monarch, his financial affairs and his entourage.
Laurent and Graciet have now been released on bail.
The meeting at the Hotel Raphael on August 27th was part of an operation agreed between the police and the Moroccan lawyer, Hicham Naciri. Unknown to the journalists, who are both freelance, the Paris public prosecutor’s office had already begun an investigation after a complaint for blackmail was lodged against them earlier in the month by the Moroccan authorities.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Laurent had previously met alone with Naciri on two occasions in August, the second time under police surveillance. During all three meetings, Naciri recorded the conversations using his mobile phone.
At the very moment the arrested journalists were being questioned by police, a high-profile French lawyer representing the Moroccan monarchy, Éric Dupond-Moretti, told RTL radio http://www.rtl.fr/actu/international/le-roi-du-maroc-victime-de-chantage-c-est-extremement-glauque-dit-l-avocat-eric-dupond-moretti-7779525557 : “It is the first time to my knowledge that a figure who takes himself for a journalist directly exercises blackmail against a serving head of state [...] One asks oneself what was the motive. Was it venality? Or was this man and this woman not manipulated by a group? And in particular, one asks oneself the question of terrorism. I say that very seriously.”
But despite the emphatic comments by Dupond-Moretti, and the admission by the journalists themselves that they had accepted a financial deal to abandon publication of their book, the events that led to their arrest are less clear-cut than at first appeared. That is what emerges from evidence in the ongoing investigation, including the forensic experts’ report on taped recordings of the meetings in August, their transcriptions, and the statements of Laurent and Graciet, to which Mediapart has gained access and publishes here.
The initial observations by police forensic experts found the first of the voice recordings incriminating Laurent and Graciet, made on lawyer Hicham Naciri mobile phone and submitted to the public prosecutor’s office as evidence of the alleged blackmail attempt, could have been tampered with.
"The first file is barely audible and may have been the object of modifications," reads a report by the Brigade de Répression de la Délinquance contre la Personne (BRDP), the police squad appointed to the case under Judge Isabelle Rich-Flament. The report, sent to the Paris public prosecutor’s office on August 25th, cites the conclusions of the French police forensic science laboratory (the Institut National de Police Scientifique) based at Écully, near Lyon. The laboratory found that the file "may have been changed using sophisticated technical methods."
Several legal experts also question the legal validity of the three recordings, which were all made by Naciri, acting alone, on his mobile phone, including during meetings held after the initial, preliminary enquiry was opened by the Paris prosecutor's office when .
The affair began on August 20th, when Ralph Boussier, the Moroccan regime’s principal lawyer in France, lodged a lawsuit with the Paris prosecutor on behalf of Mounir El Majidi, a prominent Moroccan businessman who is also personal secretary to the King of Morocco. The lawsuit, filed against Laurent and Graciet, alleged that Laurent had contacted the king's office by telephone on July 23rd to discuss "highly confidential information prejudicial to the monarch".
The palace dispatched Naciri to meet Laurent in Paris. At their meeting on July 28th, Laurent allegedly said he was prepared to abandon publication of the book he had been writing with Graciet "against a sum of 3 million euros". The book was to be published at the beginning of next year by Éditions du Seuil, which in 2012 published their earlier joint work, Le Roi prédateur.
The first encounter between Naciri and Laurent to discuss this arrangement took place on August 11th in the bar of the Royal Monceau hotel, on the Avenue Hoche in central Paris. The meeting was recorded by Naciri and lasted one hour and 13 seconds. But the BRDP noted that "the recording is of bad quality and numerous parts are inaudible, notably the journalist's comments". Naciri's mobile was in his pocket during the recording.
The conversation was amiable. They discussed Japan, from where Naciri had just returned, before turning to the subject at hand. Laurent, who has written several investigative books that have caused controversy, spoke of his investigation of the Moroccan king’s affairs and said he and Graciet were to send their manuscript to their publisher in three months' time. Then, for about a quarter of an hour during which no conversation was recorded, Laurent appears to hand the lawyer a confidential document to read.
The document was a report from the Kroll risk consultancy agency on Moroccan firm OCP (L’Office Chérifien des Phosphates), a leading global producer of phosphates and fertilisers, alleging that OCP functions as a slush fund for the Moroccan royal family. French supermarket group Casino and its CEO, Jean-Charles Naouri, were also mentioned.
The conversation continues with talk and laughter and at the 34th minute, while the recording does not allow what Laurent said just before to be clearly understood, Naciri is heard saying: "So for you, you are of the view, if […] of a transaction, in exchange for which, you make the commitment with Madame Graciet to forget, to absolutely forget to talk about anything that could touch in one way or another […]."
Laurent's replies are often inaudible. The lawyer continues: "Obtaining an arrangement with you, according to which you are committed not to talk about such and such a subject, that can be done."
Laurent replies: "It can be done."
Naciri the says: "It's not a moral commitment, it would be a contractual commitment.”
To which Laurent replies, "Yes, entirely agreed."
In the hashed recording, Naciri asks for access to the information that was to be published. "No, but it's in a concern to anticipate […] On the same line as our discussions, very openly […] arrangement. What would interest you? "
Laurent apparently writes something at this point. Naciri continues: "300 euros, in dirhams? Or…" On this precise point the recording is far from as clear and concise as Naciri's later statements about what was said, and which were wrongly cited as being part of the transcriptions in French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche. In written minutes from August 21st, the day after the lawsuit was launched, Naciri alleges that Laurent openly sought 3 million euros for himself and Graciet to abandon publishing their book. Laurent is said to have raised "problems of succession in the royal family", OCP’s alleged role as a slush fund as well as Mohammed VI's assets and "suspicious financial movements, all of it following up on the initial denunciations that appeared in the first volume of the book", according to Naciri.
According to the transcription of the recording, this first discussion between Laurent and Naciri is very friendly and concludes with polite exchanges and pleasant banter on Japanese culture.
Graciet spoke of her 'relief' in abandoning the book
On August 21st, the Paris public prosecutor’s office, headed by François Molins, ordered the BRDP to question Naciri, and to proceed with a forensic examination and transcription of the first of the recordings he supplied, which had been transferred onto a memory stick. That same day, a second meeting between Éric Laurent and Naciri was to take place at the Royal Monceau. The police were to mount a surveillance of the hotel entrance and to later seize video recordings of the meeting from the hotel’s CCTV system. But the police officers neither filmed nor sound recorded the events - the public prosecutor’s office relied entirely on the lawyer to make the sound recording himself.
On that occasion time Naciri’s recording is of better quality and, according to a later examination by the BRDP, does not appear to have been tampered with. During their conversation, once again held in an amiable manner and which lasted one hour and 14 minutes, Naciri prompted the journalist into repeating comments that now compromise him. Naciri questioned Laurent over the authenticity of the OCP report – the Moroccan authorities apparently possess another, quite different version – and insisted that the journalist show him the confidential documents he claimed to have.
Laurent appeared keen to demonstrate his goodwill. He spoke of a “context”, “an image problem” for Morocco, and “a problem in relations with France” which he said is linked to what he calls French president François Hollande’s favourable approach to Morocco’s neighbour Algeria, and the revelations over tax evasion via the HSBC bank where Mohammed VI allegedly held a secret account. Laurent also spoke of holding sensitive information about the Moroccan conglomerate, the National Investment Company (Société nationale d’investissement , SNI), controlled by the Moroccan monarchy, and the Office chérifien des phosphates. He also mentioned details of the Moroccan king’s private life.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
The sum of 3 million euros is clearly raised during the discussions, in which Naciri claimed he had a “mandate” from a leading member of Mohammed VI’s entourage, Mounir El Majidi, who is also the king’s personal secretary. Laurent spoke of the “pugnacity” of his colleague Catherine Graciet, who he said was in agreement for a deal to be struck, and “is kept up-to-date on the details”.
Naciri can be heard insisting that he be told what damaging information the pair still had in store. Laurent answered with more references to the SNI, to bungs being paid, and negotiations over electric power stations with Areva and Alstom. Naciri told Laurent that, given the “substantial amount” of money under discussion, he wanted to see more documented proof of the information held by the journalists, and said that Catherine Graciet should be present during the financial transactions.
“I insist,” said Naciri, “if you have things, it’s documentation please, because that is one of the missions I have been given. To look at the documentation and to judge it. It’s a little under my responsibility that this study will be done,” he continued, before concluding: “Thank you very much. Goodbye
Another meeting is planned, this time in the presence of Catherine Graciet, for the following week, on August 27th. Naciri suggested this be held at the bar of the Peninsula hotel, where he rents a room, but Graciet insists that it be at the Hotel Raphael, on the basis that it is more discreet.
The August 27th meeting lasted almost five hours. Once again, it was recorded by the lawyer, while police officers mounted surveillance. Naciri again used his mobile phone to make three successive recordings, the first lasting one hour and 13 minutes, the second 53 minutes and a third of 42 minutes. The tone of the discussions, once again, was cordial.
“Already, I’ll tell you, I am in agreement with the conditions that Éric has set out,” Graciet can be heard saying. “There’s no problem with that, we’re on the same wavelength.” She spoke of information obtained from the French intelligence service, the DGSE, of phone taps and sensitive information about leading Moroccan figures. She also mentioned information about the discovery in 2010 at Paris’ Orly airport of “50 kilos of cocaine” in a Moroccan diplomatic bag, a scandal covered up by the French authorities. She referred to “arguments over the inheritance” following the death of Mohammed VI’s father, Hassan II, which she claimed gave an “apocalyptic” impression.
“You who control this information, what is the impact of a book like that?” asked Naciri. “Devastating, devastating,” replied Laurent, while Graciet referred Naciri to the supposed fallout from her 2011 book about the affairs of the overthrown Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Both journalists raised the revelations of secret accounts held with the HSBC bank.
At one point, they even suggested that they would be relieved to shelve their book, which might destabalise the Moroccan regime. “So another effect which is in my opinion quite important is in all simplicity with regard to the [North African] region,” Graciet told Naciri. “Look at the region, you are the only country which is coping.”
The two journalists provide further information about the management of the OCP, and previous comments made by Hassan II to Laurent. Naciri then took leave of the pair, saying he was going to phone Mohammed VI’s personal secretary.
“Right, I spoke in length with my client, with whom I shared the information,” he said upon his return. “He would have preferred it if I had access to the documents. I explained the sensitivity [of this] for you, which he understands. “So, er, to put it simply, he asks me to make a counter-proposition which is a sum of one and a half million euros instead of the three that you ask for. It is his appreciation of the information and the potential damage, and then above all he found that the sum of three [million euros], above all going about it blind, is extremely large.
There then followed long negotiations over the sum to be paid and the terms of what was called “the transaction”. Naciri insisted he had been given the task of concluding an agreement in writing that same day. Graciet raised concerns over the use that might be made of a written agreement.
But Naciri retorted: “The credit I give you, to be able to come to something [as an agreement], is more important than that which you give to me. Because I am forced to place faith in [oral] words that will be put into a contract. You still have the documents. What gives me proof or guarantees to me that you won’t hand them over on the sly to someone else?”
The three then begin again discussing the sum to be paid. The journalists ask for 2 million euros. “For the payment we need about eight days,” said Laurent. “It’s either Singapore, or more certainly Hong Kong.” There is also discussion about masking the payment in a false consultancy contract. The journalists then explain that to sign the contract they want an advance payment in cash. Naciri replies: “Listen, I’ll see what I have in my hotel room.”
He then left for the Peninsula hotel, while the two journalists write by hand several copies of a protocol agreement.
When Naciri returned to the meeting at the Raphael hotel, he gave them 80,000 euros, made up of notes of 100 euros in two envelopes in return for the signed agreements. Graciet spoke of her “relief” in not publishing the book, adding that “the contents were too serious”.
A few minutes later, the journalists were arrested by police officers from the BRDP.
'The information is apocalyptic for the royal family'
During questioning by the BRDP officers, Laurent and Graciet gave broadly similar accounts that they had been framed. Laurent began by saying that the allegation of blackmail “have strictly nothing to do with the truth, it’s a construction aimed at discrediting Madam Graciet and myself”.
He claimed that before beginning to write their planned book, he had phoned the Moroccan king’s secretary “to ask him for an appointment in order to have his explanations about the elements in our possession”.
Laurent’s statement to the police continues: “Naciri then put it to me that a way be found so that the book doesn’t come out, in the superior interests of the [Moroccan] kingdom, given the existing complicated relations between France and the Moroccan kingdom. I asked him to clarify his thinking, and he said to me that compensation, the sum of which would be discussed with his superior at the palace, could be proposed to us in exchange for the book being abandoned. At no moment did this involve an attempted blackmail nor the extortion of funds, but, on the opposite, a proposition made by the other party to ensure that there be no publication about this burning subject.”
“We had suspicions about the person and about the methods of a regime that has a well-known tendency to manipulate, to instrumentalise, to discredit,” Laurent said. “The procedure in fact aimed to totally discredit us. The leaks to the press that immediately followed our arrest without any doubt confirm this.”
Later in his statement, Laurent finally admitted his own proposal for a deal, saying he had “suggested to Naciri, as of the first meeting, a sum in compensation for the non-publication of the book, the contents of which troubled Catherine and myself”, adding: “It seemed to me that this book was highly sensitive and that in the end it would be detrimental to the stability of Morocco.”
Laurent also said that the size of the sum demanded was due to his wife’s serious health problems and his own professional “fatigue”. Questioned about the imprudence he showed in the contacts with the Moroccans, he replied: “It is all the more inexplicable on my part given that I am well placed to know that the Moroccans are remarkable specialists in twisted moves. But since I saw only the dimension of the negotiation that held no threats, I didn’t imagine all that.”
“I acknowledge that I let myself be trapped, but I hold great bitterness over what happened to me today, with regard to what I have been able to see in the functioning of the Moroccan court and the financial capture of the country’s economy by people who gravitate around the king […].”
Laurent then concludes his statement by saying that he nevertheless still wanted to publish the book. “This event will make up an instructive chapter,” he said. His publishing house, Seuil, has since announced it will not go ahead with the publication.
Catherine Gracie was questioned separately at the same time as Éric Laurent. Referring to what Laurent had told her about the first two meetings – she joined in the discussions directly during the third – Graciet also claimed that it was Naciri who initiated the idea and sum of a “financial agreement”. On the subject of the lawyer’s insistence that he be shown their incriminating documents, she said: “We discussed this with Éric, and we agreed that at no point would we show any document, so as to protect our sources, given the risk of torture that they would face in Morocco. I would like to make clear, without revealing my sources, that the information we have is apocalyptic for the royal family.” At this point she mentions the name of Prince Moulay Rachid, the brother of Mohammed VI.
Nevertheless, it remains that Graciet, despite her own professional experience and caution, also agreed to a financial deal in return for the non-publication of the book. During the questioning, she claimed that the discussions with Naciri were “a set-up aimed at discrediting me vis-à-vis public readership, the publisher, and to prevent me from coming out with the work”.
“By accepting this sum and signing this agreement, I didn’t see the harm, and I respected the journalistic deontology of the protection of sources, because they were under no threat,” her statement reads. “However, with hindsight, I acknowledge that I should never have accepted this sum.”
It was while Laurent and Graciet were being questioned that one of the Moroccan king’s lawyers in France, Éric Dupond-Moretti, a senior and high-profile figure in the profession, publicly denounced the journalists’ behaviour without any regard to their basic right under French law to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
His representation of the Moroccan monarchy is in contrast to his earlier role as lawyer for the family of General Mohammad Oufkir, a key political figure in Morocco who was right-hand man to King Hassan II until he led a coup attempt against the monarch on August 16th 1972.
The coup failed and Oufkir died the same day from multiple bullet wounds, officially described as a suicide despite compelling evidence that he was murdered. Oufkir’s family were subsequently imprisoned during almost 20 years, the subject of a 2001 book, Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by one of the general’s daughters, Malika Oufkir. In 2006, Dupond-Moretti, representing the Oufkir family, lodged a lawsuit in France against Driss Basri, a former Moroccan interior minister and senior aide to King Hassan II, then exiled in Paris, for “torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment or treatment”. Two similar earlier lawsuits by the Oufkir family, in 1999 and 2005, were thrown out, and Basri died in 2007.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse and Sue Landau