LETTER FROM THE MAGHREB
Was a French lawyer raped in Casablanca, Morocco, on the night of November 2-3? This is the question that worries Moroccan newspapers from the information site le360 revealed, on Wednesday, November 20, that “Three men from large Moroccan families were detained by the police”. The events of which they are accused allegedly took place during an evening organized at the villa of Kamil Bennis, an actor in the fitness industry. Who died in 2019, his father, Ali Bennis, is known for having been a figure in the Moroccan pharmaceutical industry, directing the Laprophan laboratories and, in parallel, leading a career as a diplomat.
The main suspect in this matter, Kamil Bennis, aged about forty, would have benefited from the complicity of two relatives: Saad Slaoui, presented as belonging to a line of businessmen, and M’hammed Alj, son of Chakib Alj, president of the General Confederation of Moroccan Entrepreneurs. They were all placed in preventive detention after complaints filed in Paris and Casablanca by their accuser. She claims to have been drugged and then raped by Kamil Bennis, which he denies, claiming the report was “spoiled”. In support of the young woman’s statements, a medical report would mention sexual violence.
The press initially refused to reveal the identity of the defendants to online media. The desk does not reveal their surnames the day after their custody. Since then, the instruction has been the subject of numerous comments and its media coverage is largely due to the pedigree of the three protagonists. The embarrassment is such that it forced Laprophan to deny any direct link to Kamil Bennis, who “does not participate in the management or governance of the company”. Chakib Alj, the boss of bosses, has canceled a series of visits to Asia, according to the bulletin Africa Intelligence.
“We all suffer harassment”
That a rape case involves members of the ruling class or personalities is not something new in Morocco. On February 24, 2023, the singer Saad Lamjarred, one of the most prominent Moroccan artists of his generation, was sentenced by the Paris Criminal Court to six years in prison for the rape of a woman in the bedroom of a palace. Parisian, in 2016. The complainant was 20 years old at the time.
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