OWhere’s the blackmail, Mr. President? »defended Eric Laurent, former reporter for Radio France and the Figaro Magazine and author of numerous books, accused of having demanded 2 million euros to refrain from publishing embarrassing information.
The ex-journalist, now 75, admits before the Paris Criminal Court “an ethical error”, “a shipwreck” to get “agreed to (s) get involved in this affair”but not “the slightest criminal offence”.
The Moroccan emissary “seduced me with his financial offer, I dived and I regret it”abounds the other defendant Catherine Graciet, 48, author of books on the Maghreb and Libya.
Two Versions
Already authors in 2012 of a book on Mohammed VI, The predator Kingthe two journalists had signed a contract with Le Seuil for a second volume on the same subject.
On July 23, 2015, Eric Laurent contacted the private secretariat of the King of Morocco to request a meeting, organized on August 11 in a Parisian palace with an emissary of the monarchy, the lawyer Hicham Naciri.
“I describe the contents of the book to him”which plans to discuss tensions in the royal family and accusations of financial embezzlement involving public companies in the country, says Eric Laurent, seated on a chair at the bar of the court. “Me Naciri said to me: ‘all that doesn’t suit us’, and very quickly we switch to a transaction. It is he who proposeshe says.
“That’s not how it happened”replies Ralph Boussier, one of the lawyers of the Moroccan State, for whom it is indeed Mr. Laurent who “evokes an arrangement”.
The book project “never existed, they have no element to write it (…) The revelations that will shake the kingdom of Morocco: where are they? There is nothing “he argues, considering that the two journalists saw in an attempt to blackmail ” an opportunity “ pour ” to change life “.
Open investigation
After this meeting, Morocco filed a complaint. An investigation is opened and it is under the surveillance of investigators that two other meetings are organized, on August 21 and 27. At the last, in the presence of Catherine Graciet, the two journalists signed an agreement to withdraw the book project for 2 million euros. Before being arrested with each 40,000 euros in cash.
They then learn that the three encounters were recorded by the king’s emissary. Faced with the transcript of the first meeting, where he seems to be actively proposing a sum, Mr. Laurent sweeps away: “this recording is fake”.
An expert recognized that the copy given to the investigators had undergone “a post-processing, impossible to specify”but defense appeals deeming it illegal were dismissed in 2017. “There is no evidence that this recording has been modified, broken up or that there has been an edit”underlines the prosecutor.
The decision will be made on March 14.