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Join on Telegram Rabat – French journalists Eric Laurent and Catherine Graciet received a one-year suspended prison sentence on Tuesday, as well as a 10,000 euro fine for their involvement in blackmailing Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
The two journalists were also sentenced to pay 1 euro to the North African country in damages as well as 5,000 euros each to cover additional costs.
The defendants’ lawyers have appealed the court’s decision, news outlet AFP reported.
The Paris Criminal Court ruled that the journalists “exerted pressure” on the monarch by threatening to release a book that would be “devastating” for the country.
The case made international headlines in 2015 after it emerged that the journalists were arrested and accused of extorting 2 million euros from the monarch in order to not publish a book titled “The Predator King.”
According to French newspaper Le Monde, the pair met with the King’s personal lawyer Hicham Naciri in August 2015 after contacting officials from Morocco’s royal palace to inform them of the book.
The outlet reported that Naciri secretly recorded his meeting with the two journalists, who were then arrested on August 27, 2015.
Upon their arrest the defendants were in possession of 80,000 euros in cash, according to multiple reports.
Shortly after being arrested, Laurent admitted to dialing the Royal Cabinet and demanding a huge sum of money in exchange for not publishing the book.
Despite protests from the journalists’ defense, France’s highest court ruled that the recordings that incriminated the pair could be used as evidence in 2017.
