Morocco’s head of judicial police warns against undermining state institutions

RABAT - Morocco’s director of the judicial police Mohamed Dkhissi warned on Saturday against those who take advantage of democracy in the North African kingdom to serve their own interests and undermine state institutions and officials.

“There are in Morocco those who take advantage of the widening of the margin of freedom and the climate of democracy that reign in the Kingdom to serve personal interests and undermine institutions and officials, said the central director of the Judicial Police,” said Dkhissi in an interview with M24, the MAP TV channel.

“If Morocco has undergone major transformations in the field of rights and freedoms, under the enlightened leadership of HM King Mohammed VI, nobody can grant themselves the right to take advantage of this situation to make defamatory statements undermining people's dignity,” said Dkhissi.

“Morocco is a pioneering model at the regional and international levels in the field of security cooperation, as evidenced by its active participation in efforts to fight extremism, terrorism, organised crime and transnational crimes,” said Dkhissi, who is also the head of Interpol Office in Rabat.

He said that among the priorities of the Directorate General of National Security (DGSN) is the strengthening and promotion of international, Arab and African cooperation, through liaison officers or international organisations of judicial police, or through the Council of Arab Interior Ministers and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Dkhissi emphasised women's skills, which actively contribute to the efforts made by the DGSN in various sectors and fields, which has made it possible to occupy management positions in several structures of the police institution.

He also underlined the role of women in the management of the period of sanitary confinement, imposed as part of the fight against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that has taken its toll on the Moroccan economy.

Dkhissi’s interview came in the midst of a judicial case concerning former policewoman Wahiba Kharchich defended by Mohamed Ziane who attacked the DGSN and its director Abdellatif Hammouchi in videos posted on social networks.

Kharchich, who is now living with her husband and daughter after her suspension from the police force, spoke on the Touhfa Show YouTube channel about her harassment by her superiors, accusing the DGSN of covering up Aziz Boumehdi, head of the prefectural security of El Jadida at the time of the facts in 2014.

Kharchich said in an interview with Touhfa Show channel on Youtube that she had to file a complaint against Boumehdi in 2016 and saw her transfer after her revelation of the harassment as a reprisal against her.

After having exhausted the legal and administrative, the policewoman declared to have recently sent a letter to the Royal Palace to look into her case.

Kharchich appeared recently with her lawyer Ziane in “obscene images” that had been taken from a video and published by the media which she claimed were "false and fabricated."

The policewoman accused the DGSN of ignoring a case where the police institution was "directly implicated".

She accused her representative of being behind the leak of the images, but also of personal information, including the contact details of her husband.

Mohamed El Hossaini Karrout, Boumehdi's lawyer, claimed on Friday that Kharchich was the alleged perpetrator of the recorded video.

On November 25, Ziane’s Moroccan Liberal Party called on Moroccan authorities to “dissolve the General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DGST) and spread its employees over other security services.”

The party said taxpayers’ rights and freedoms “risk being violated by a security administration which has no real role.”

Dkhissi said that Kharchich’s case passed all the legal stages.

"All the legal and administrative procedures required in this case have been carried out,” he told M24.

“The findings were submitted to the DGSN, before the General Inspectorate listened to the suspended official,” he added.

The head of the judicial police said that Hammouchi instructed him to apply the law and spare no one until the end and insisted that Boumehdi did not benefit from any privilege.

He said that the judicial police was given instructions to conduct a detailed investigation into the video implicating Ziane and Kharchich and initiate all procedures.