HIBAPRESS – A. Muhyawi
The Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Appeal in Meknes has referred a gendarme and a female gendarme working at the Ain Taoujdat territorial center in the Al-Hajeb province to judicial questioning, after being suspected of involvement in a case related to extortion and receiving financial sums without legal justification.
The details of the case go back to a woman submitting a complaint to the gendarmerie center in Ain Taoujdat regarding her son being assaulted. However, according to her statements, she was surprised by a female gendarme asking her for 1,500 dirhams in exchange for "expediting the procedures" and presenting the accused before the Public Prosecution. It was agreed to hand over 1,000 dirhams as a first installment, with the remaining amount to be completed later. After the complainant left the center, she went directly to the regional command of the Royal Gendarmerie in Meknes, based on the advice of a civil activist, and informed the officials of the details of the incident. Following that, the regional commander personally went to the territorial center accompanied by the complainant, where the female gendarme's office was raided and the delivered amount was found hidden near an iron box. Immediately after the money was seized, orders were issued to arrest all the elements of the concerned patrol and subject them to investigation at the judicial division. The initial investigations resulted in identifying a gendarme and a female gendarme as the main perpetrators of the extortion operation, while the presence of the rest of the patrol members inside the office at the time of the incident was not proven. The two individuals in question were presented before the Attorney General of the King in Meknes, given the disciplinary nature of their function, to follow the course of the judicial investigation. In parallel, the regional command took urgent disciplinary measures, which consisted of suspending them from work, stripping them of their professional equipment, and suspending the payment of their salaries until the legal procedure is completed.
