A Moroccan court on Monday sentenced journalist and human rights activist Omar Radi to six years in jail on charges of espionage and rape, offences which he has denied.
Radi’s trial opened in June last year, just days after rights group Amnesty International charged that Moroccan authorities had planted Israel-made Pegasus spyware on his cellphone.
Rabat denied the report at the time, and on Monday the authorities “categorically rejected” using Israeli spyware to monitor critics at home and abroad.
Radi is a known vocal critic of the authorities and has been detained since July 2020 and his arrest and detention sparked protests by rights activists, intellectuals and politicians at home and abroad.
He faced charges of rape and “undermining the internal security of the state” in two separate cases investigated separately but judged together.
Radi was also accused of having received “foreign funds” in exchange for providing “intelligence” information to a third party.
On Monday Amnesty in a statement labelled the proceedings “flawed” and “not justice”, and called for “a fair retrial in line with international standards”.
Radi has protested his innocence throughout, and last month told the court the case against him was void and “did not justify my imprisonment for nearly a year”.
He said he was the victim of people “who consider themselves above the law”, and rejected both charges of rape and espionage.
A government statement denied that Rabat had “infiltrated the phones of several national and international public figures and heads of international organisations through computer software.
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