A Moroccan journalist, profiled by the Star and 16 other international publications last month after his phone was hacked, has been arrested along with a colleague after a late-night altercation with a cameraman that Radi’s editor calls a set-up.
Omar Radi and Imad Stitou, his colleague at the investigative online publication Le Desk, were arrested minutes after leaving a nightclub in Casablanca, according to an article published in Le Desk on Monday morning.
After spending nearly 24 hours in jail, Radi and Stitou were released Monday evening. They have been charged with public intoxication.
The cameraman had been waiting in a van outside the club for hours, according to the article, and began filming them when they stepped outside. Video posted by ChoufTV to Facebook shows Radi and Stitou filming the cameraman with their phones. Shortly afterward, a police van arrived and arrested the Le Desk journalists, Le Desk wrote.
“We must insist on the fact that what happened yesterday has all the attributes of an ambush,” said Ali Amar, editor of Le Desk.
“Omar and Imad were trapped. It’s a premeditated scenario: this cameraman is driving with his wife, who is also a journalist, and his child, late in the evening in a somewhat ‘sketchy’ district of Casa where there are bars … It’s clear that all this is was orchestrated.”
“These are the methods found in the worst authoritarian regimes in the region,” said Amar. “My perception is that they absolutely wanted to get rid of Omar … It’s a way to stop him from working.”
Radi was the subject of a Star report in June — co-ordinated by the Paris-based journalism organization, Forbidden Stories — that revealed his phone had been hacked by an “invisible” technology that left virtually no traces. Amnesty International, which performed a forensic analysis of his phone, determined that it had been infected by “Pegasus” spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group. Amnesty and Toronto-based The Citizen Lab said the Moroccan government was likely behind the hack.
After Omar’s story was published by 17 Forbidden Stories partners around the world, the Moroccan public prosecutor opened an investigation into Radi for receiving money from a foreign intelligence service. He was interrogated for two days.
Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders (known by its French acronym, RSF), tweeted that the organization “deplores” the arrests of Radi and Stitou, which was carried out with “no plausible explanation.”
Amnesty International denounced the arrest in a tweet: “In a blatant disregard for freedom of expression and the press, the Moroccan authorities arrested on Sunday Moroccan journalist Omar Radi, accompanied by another journalist, Imad Stitou, in Casablanca.”
Forbidden Stories has made a request to interview Moroccan Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani about Radi’s case, but received no response.
Radi previously stated that conversations he had on his phone were likely leaked by the hackers to ChoufTV, where they appeared in online articles. Since Amnesty’s report, the ChoufTV cameraman present at his arrest had filmed Radi entering and exiting both of his police interrogations.
ChoufTV’s owner, Driss Chahtane, did not respond to messages and emails seeking comment.
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Sign Up Now“There’s a feeling of fear, a feeling of terror” among journalists in Morocco, said Amar. “Everyone knows that ChoufTV is acting to serve authorities, so journalists do not want to find themselves in Omar or Imad’s situation.
“So reporters and press patrons walk on eggshells. No journalist has called Omar to get his version or any information, even on the espionage charge.”
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