French border police officer to stand trial for selling files to Moroccan secret service

A French border policeman will stand trial for transferring hundreds of highly confidential documents on wanted people to Moroccan secret services in exchange for luxurious holidays abroad, judicial sources told AFP.

Published: 26 August 2020 08:28 CEST

French border police officer to stand trial for selling files to Moroccan secret service

The officer was based at Orly airport, south of Paris. Photo: AFP

The 62-year-old was head of the border police's information unit at Orly airport south of Paris. He was in charge of tracking the movement of people on the wanted list, including those suspected of radicalisation.

Now retired, the policeman is suspected of giving between 100 and 200 highly sensitive records to the Moroccan secret services – earning him cash payments and lavish free holidays in Morocco and also Angola.

The investigation brought to light a payment of €17,000 to the bank account of the policeman and his wife, who were in debt at the time.

He will stand trial for corruption at Creteil court to the southeast of Paris, for events that took place between October 2014 and May 2017.

“At the time, my client was convinced he was acting in the superior interest of France,” his lawyer Blandine Russo told AFP.

“He was asked to collaborate with Morocco. For him, it was a way of monitoring (wanted people) and avoiding new terrorist attacks,” Russo said, adding that her client was psychologically troubled at the time.

A Franco-Moroccan man, accused of being the middleman with the Moroccan secret services, is also standing trial for corruption.

As head of an airport security company, the 57-year-old is believed to have had a central role in the set up.

He is suspected of transferring the confidential documents, many of which were found at his home and in his office.

The Franco-Moroccan is also accused of paying for the holidays abroad of the policeman and his family.

Contacted by AFP, his lawyer did not wish to comment.

The border policeman's wife will also stand trial for receiving goods resulting from corruption – judicial authorities having decided that she must have known the reasons for the holidays.

She is also accused of stealing medicine – given to the middleman – from the hospital where she worked as a nursing assistant.

Investigators have issued an arrest warrant for the Moroccan agent, but so far he is nowhere to be found. He is wanted on charges of corruption.

“It is extremely rare for a case involving states secrets to end up in court, particularly as a result of an anonymous tip off,” the Creteil court said.

The trial should be held in 2021, a judicial source told AFP.

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The report – released on the eve of the World Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia – documents a 13 percent jump in anti-LGBTQ offences from 2022.

More serious crimes including assaults, threats, and harassment saw a 19 percent increase, with 2,870 instances recorded by French authorities.

“It feels like the embers of LGBTI-phobia have been lit, and now the fire is ready to take hold,” said president of French activist group SOS Homophobie Julia Torlet.

“What worries us most are the emerging trends…we are extremely concerned,” Torlet added, saying “if the government doesn’t act” France risks backsliding into the violence seen in 2013 over the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

The number of anti-LGBTQ incidents has risen sharply – about 17 percent on average each year for crimes and misdemeanours – since 2016, according to the interior ministry.

But these figures only paint part of the picture.

Men account for the majority of both victims and perpetrators in anti-LGBTQ incidents, accounting for 70 and 82 percent, respectively.

Moreover, the perpetrators are predominately young, with nearly half of all accused under 30 and more than a third under 19, says the report.

While the report says victims are now “better received” by authorities, only 20 percent of those subjected to threats or violence and five percent of victims of verbal abuse file a complaint.

“We’re past the worry stage,” spokesman for Stop Homophobie Maxime Haes told AFP.

Anti-LGBTQ acts are linked to the “drastic increase in LGBT-phobic discourse,” said Haes, which he says are fuelled by “the rise of the far right and religious extremism”.

The owner of a bar in Nantes, a city in western France, told regional newspaper Ouest-France it cancelled an LGBTQ-friendly event in early May over safety concerns after a poster featuring individuals in religious habits sparked an “outpouring of hate” online.

And in France, 60 percent of people avoid holding hands with same-sex partners for fear of being assaulted, according to a 2024 report from the European Agency for Fundamental Rights.

The country has also seen a spike in transphobic discourse, Haes said.

SOS Homophobie has denounced what it calls “abysmal government silence” and criticised the lack of “ambitious policy” on LGBTQ issues even after the appointment of out gay Prime Minister Gabriel Attal earlier this year.

“Hate speech is not being combatted at all by politicians,” Haes of Stop Homophobie added.