Marrakech – Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education, Azzeddine El Midaoui, this month dismissed Ahmed Kadim from his post as dean of the Faculty of Arabic Language at Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech.
The decision followed the circulation of audio recordings attributed to Kadim containing intimate exchanges and sexual innuendos with a woman identified as a university student.
The leaked recordings featured talk of facilitating enrollment in master’s and doctoral programs in exchange for a personal relationship, along with requests for physical intimacy and invitations to meet at an apartment or hotel. The material triggered widespread condemnation across academic and public circles, prompting the ministry to act swiftly pending further investigation.
Kadim, a rhetoric and argumentation scholar born in Zagora in 1969, had served as dean since June 2018. He broke his silence in a public statement posted to his Facebook page, acknowledging the recordings as authentic but insisting they date back to 2008 and 2009.
He maintained that the woman first contacted him in 2008, introducing herself as “a student suffering a psychological crisis due to her attachment” to him and claiming she had left university for that reason. His responses, he argued, aimed entirely at persuading her to resume her studies.
“All my answers, which were not broadcast, were that returning to studies is the most important thing,” Kadim wrote, adding that he “insisted on meeting her to convince her to return, but she refused all attempts.”
The former dean contended he deliberately reciprocated the woman’s professions of affection in a calculated effort to steer her back toward academic life. He noted that his wife was aware of the initial calls, as the first one reached him at home.
Kadim recounted that the woman blocked him in 2009. Three years later, a student informed him the caller “is not a student but was deployed by one of my colleagues to blackmail me.” The same student told him the woman was from Youssoufia and “had recorded many professors using the same trick.”
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He added that the student helped him destroy the hard drive containing the recordings in 2012. He later learned a faculty colleague possessed another copy. That colleague, Kadim claimed, admitted receiving the recordings but told him they “were lost during a move to another house” and promised to destroy them.
“After eighteen years, he published them and created a misleading context around them,” Kadim charged, accusing the colleague of seeking to win the deanship “through scheming.”
He attributed the timing to professional vendettas, pointing to a thesis connected to the accused professor that had been distributed among undergraduate students – a violation Kadim claimed led him to block its defense.
He also described confronting a civil society association that he alleged attempted to exploit the faculty by imposing publishing fees on students. He declared he possesses documents to substantiate both claims.
Kadim denied ever meeting the woman “even once in my life” and declared full readiness to face judicial or administrative scrutiny.
He directed pointed criticism at El Midaoui, accusing the ministry of ruling without consulting him. “The ministry did not ask me about the matter and did not investigate the facts,” he wrote. “You are a statesman; it does not befit you to let emotions govern sensitive matters.”
He closed with a warning to the minister: “I can inform you of matters that would make children’s hair turn gray, if you truly want to preserve the standing and symbolism of the university.”
The ministry has not issued further comment. The case remains pending investigation.
