Parliamentarian Mobdii arrested in corruption case
Mohamed Mobdii, the former minister and head of the Populist Movement Party, as well as a parliamentarian, has been arrested on charges of squandering public funds, exploiting influence, bribery, and forgery in customary, commercial, and official documents. He was sent to the notorious “Akasha” prison in the early hours of Thursday following an investigation by a judge at the court of Appeal in Casablanca. The public prosecutor in the same court is also charging 13 other individuals in this case, including engineers, employees, contractors, and officials at consultancy offices. The prosecutor has demanded the arrest of eight people, which was confirmed by the investigating judge.
According to Hespress sources, the investigation mainly concerns the process of arranging public transactions in the city of Faqih Bensalah from 2005 to the present day, during which time Mobdii was the president of the city council. The investigation includes urban area development deals, for which millions of dirhams were spent, and deals that benefited consultancy offices. One of the issues raised during the investigation was the purchase of a car using public funds amounting to $160,000. Mobdii denies the charges and claims to have used his own funds to buy the car. Some of his former employees as the President of the City Council in Faqih Bensalah are accusing him of pressure in public.
Mobdii resigned from the chairmanship of the Justice Committee of the House of Representatives during the investigation stage and submitted medical records showing that he was hospitalized in a military hospital and handed a medical rest for 15 days. The defense argues that the public prosecution brought the accused before the expiration of the period of the medical certificate.
It is worth noting that the charges against Mobdii, the head of the Fakih Bensaleh municipality, were based on a complaint filed by the regional branch of the Moroccan Association for the Protection of Public Funds in Casablanca authorities against him. The branch accused him of squandering public funds, illegal enrichment, and violation of the law on public transactions, manipulation in transactions, inflating the value of bills, paying dues for unfinished works, and directing some transactions towards certain companies and offices of studies.
