Casablanca Court Sentences 39 Officials for Brokering High-Profile Cases

Rabat – The Casablanca Court of Appeal’s Criminal Chamber of First Instance sentenced 39 individuals on Thursday, including judges, mediators, lawyers, and deputy public prosecutors, for their alleged involvement in brokering and mediating high-profile cases before the judiciary.

This decision was made following extensive deliberations and investigations that started in January of last year, before closing the “court brokers” network file on Thursday, Moroccan state media reported.

The judicial delegate, who is the principal figure in the network, received a sentence of three years in prison and a MAD 25,000 ($2,500) fine.

The network was headed by a broker who is presently serving a five-year prison sentence.

Other people involved are a deputy public prosecutor at the Mohammedia Court of First Instance who was sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of MAD 12,000 ($1,200), and a deputy public prosecutor at the Ain Sebaa Court of First Instance in Casablanca who was sentenced to ten months in prison and a fine of MAD 10,000 ($1,000).

According to the verdicts, mediators received prison terms ranging from seven months to two years as well as fines ranging between MAD 6,000 ($600) and MAD 20,000 ($2,000).

As for the lawyers, three of them were sentenced from 10 months to one year in prison and fined between MAD 8,000 ($800) and MAD 10,000.

Other brokers were convicted by the Criminal Chamber of the Casablanca Court of Appeal to four months in prison, eight months of suspended imprisonment, and penalties ranging from MAD 5,000 ($500) to 8,000 dirhams.

The suspects in the case of “brokering judicial files in the courts of Casablanca and Mohammedia,” including those who were being prosecuted in custody and those who had been detained in Oukacha prison, were heard by the Casablanca Court of Appeal in June 2023.

In the file containing the reports of the suspects’ hearing, the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation also heard suspected judges under the “judicial privilege,” whose identities were still being investigated to identify other accomplices.