2023-07-15 17:50:32
By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 2 hours ago, Updated 1 hour ago
The former boss of Assu 2000 Jacques Bouthier is involved in a sex scandal. Aerial Mike / stock.adobe.com
The former boss of Assu 2000 Jacques Bouthier is involved in a sex scandal after complaints from former employees filed in June 2022 in Tangier.
Moroccan justice will issue a rogatory commission in France in the context of the sex scandal involving the former French boss Jacques Bouthier and several of his collaborators in Morocco, the lawyer for the civil parties announced on Saturday July 15. “The Court of Tangier accepted our request for the creation of a rogatory commission in France. The procedure is underway“, told AFP the lawyer Aïcha Guellaa, president of the Moroccan Association for the Rights of Victims (AMDV), during a press conference in Rabat.
According to Mr. Guellaa, this commission will aim to audition Jacques Bouthier, who is at the same time indicted in France for, among other things, “human trafficking» et «rape of a minor».
Released after ten months in detention
Aged 76, the former CEO of the insurance brokerage group Assu 2000 was released on bail, under judicial supervision, for medical reasons in March 2023 after ten months in detention. “French justice did not have the courage in the face of pecuniary pressure (…), it did not have the courage to prosecute him in a state of detention“, lamented the lawyer. “We have no hope that French justice can bring justice to the victims“, she added.
Read also Jacques Bouthier case: who is this “ambitious and pretentious” CEO, accused of raping a minor?
If Jacques Bouthier is not prosecuted at this stage in Morocco, eight of his collaborators – six Moroccans, including two women, and two French – are under prosecution for “human trafficking» et «sexual harassment», «incitement to debauchery» et «non-denunciation of attempted or committed crimes“. Four of them are currently in detention while the others are on bail. Their trial is due to resume on July 25 before the Criminal Trial Chamber of the Tangier Court of Appeal.
Moreover, “a search note has been launched by the Attorney General of the Court of Appeal of Tangier against a suspect who fled to France“, specified the lawyer Abdelfattah Zahrach. This is the former general manager of the Tangier subsidiary of Assu 2000 (renamed Vilavi), a Franco-Tunisian, according to the AMDV.
The case was initiated in Morocco after complaints from former employees filed in June 2022 in Tangier. The alleged facts occurred between 2018 and April 2022 in branches of the group, headed at the time by Jacques Bouthier. A total of six plaintiffs filed civil suits. They testified to systematic sexual harassment, threats and intimidation within the insurance broker in Tangier, in a climate of social insecurity. Rare confessions in Morocco where victims of sexual abuse are often stigmatized by society.
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