Rabat - French writer Eric Laurent has reportedly admitted having requested € 3 million to keep an allegedly compromising book about King Mohammed VI of Morocco unpublished.
Rabat – French writer Eric Laurent has reportedly admitted having requested € 3 million to keep an allegedly compromising book about King Mohammed VI of Morocco unpublished.
Laurent and co-author Catherine Graciet were arrested in Paris on Thursday for attempting to blackmail King Mohammed VI after they threatened to publish a new book about him, unless they were paid € 3 million to abstain from writing the book.
According to French daily newspaper Le Monde, Laurent admitted in detention that he indeed picked up the phone and called the royal cabinet demanding the whopping amount of money or a book containing ‘damaging revelations’ will hit the bookstore shelves early next year.
Laurent and Graciet have been handed preliminary extortion charges. The Paris prosecutor’s office on Saturday said that the pair was released under judicial supervision.
Laurent is the author of “Memoires d’un Roi”, a book he wrote following a series of interviews with late King Hassan II in 1993. The two French writers have already written one book together about the Moroccan monarch called ‘Predator King’ in 2012.
In accordance with French law, the two journalists face a minimum of 5 years in prison for their attempt to extort money from King Mohammed VI.
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