A Moroccan court handed prison sentences to 29 people, including prominent politicians and sports and business figures, in an international drug trafficking and corruption scandal that has rocked the country.
The court also ordered the defendants to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines late Thursday after a trial that lasted more than two years.
The case began when an imprisoned drug kingpin dubbed “Sahara’s Pablo Escobar," in reference to the notorious Colombian trafficker, alleged that some of his business associates, including senior Moroccan politicians, were involved in drug trafficking and seized his assets while he was in prison. Those accused have denied the allegations.
The revelations led to multiple arrests and a lengthy trial that involved 30 defendants, 18 witnesses and two civil parties. The case reignited debate over corruption in Moroccan political circles. It also prompted King Mohammed VI, Morocco’s highest authority and a figure officially above politics who rarely speaks publicly, to call for the adoption of a legally binding code of ethics to “moralize” life in parliament.
Abdennebi Bioui, a construction tycoon and former lawmaker with the co-governing Authenticity and Modernity Party, or PAM, who headed a Regional Council, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $15,989.
