HIBAPRESS – Fes
The Criminal Court of First Instance in charge of financial crimes at the Court of Appeal in Fez issued, on Tuesday, December 30th, according to a HIBAPRESS source, its rulings in one of the most prominent financial corruption cases that shook the management of local affairs in the Oujda province.
The court sentenced the head of the Ain Bni Mathar community, who belongs to the Authenticity and Modernity Party, and punished him with two years in prison, according to the same source, after being prosecuted for squandering public funds and participating in and using forgery. The court also issued similar rulings against a number of employees and engineers in the community, who were prosecuted on charges of forgery and bribery, and sentenced each of them to two years in prison.
The chapters of the case date back to last November, when the regional brigade of the judicial police in Fez, based on the instructions of the competent Public Prosecution, launched in-depth investigations that included the head of the community, his brother, and a number of employees and engineers, against the backdrop of serious suspicions related to bribery, squandering public money, and receiving illicit benefits, and participation in forgery.
The investigations revealed precise data indicating that the head of the community and members of his family benefited from a luxury apartment in the Saaidia resort, within the framework of a suspicious deal that resulted in the disposal of two plots of land belonging to the communal property in favor of a former head of a region of the Kingdom, at a preferential price far from the real market value.
It was also proven that the head of the community was involved in pressuring the head of the signature correction service to approve forged waiver contracts, without recording them in the approved legal records, in flagrant violation of the procedures in force.
These violations resulted in the disposal of two plots of land, the first with an area of more than 3 hectares, and the second exceeding 11 hectares, at a price not exceeding 50 dirhams per square meter, while the real value of the two properties was approximately 300 dirhams per meter, which caused a direct loss to the state treasury estimated at about 36 million and 965 thousand dirhams.
The investigations also showed that the disposal of the two properties was done by mutual consent, without resorting to the procedure of requests for bids, although the terms of reference stipulated that they be allocated for the implementation of social housing projects, before their destination was later changed to build villas and luxury homes.
In a related context, informed sources learned that the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal in Fez had issued instructions to the regional brigade of the judicial police to listen to a former regional official, against the backdrop of the suspicion of his direct connection to this case, while he was in pre-trial detention within the framework of another criminal file presented to the judiciary.
These rulings fall within the framework of the judiciary's tightening on public money crimes, and the strengthening of the principle of linking responsibility to accountability, at a time when popular demands are increasing to moralize public life and protect communal property from illegal exploitation.
