Morocco jails seven in sex abuse case against French tycoon

Moroccan authorities on Wednesday sentenced seven people to prison for collaborating with French insurance tycoon Jacques Bouthier in a sexual abuse and trafficking case, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said.

A court in the northern Moroccan city of Tangier "sentenced one defendant to 10 years in prison, six others to four years in prison each, while an eighth received a six-month suspended sentence," lawyer Aicha Guella told AFP.

The eight suspects -- six Moroccans, including two women, and two Frenchmen -- have been charged with human trafficking, sexual harassment and failure to report attempted or committed crimes.

Bouthier, 76 and one of France's richest men, is being held in Paris on suspicion of child rape and trafficking.

The case in Morocco opened in June 2022 when four former employees of a local subsidiary of Bouthier's insurance group Assu 2000, later renamed Vilavi, pressed charges against him.

The accusations include repeated sexual harassment and intimidation between 2018 and April 2022 in the Tangiers offices of Assu 2000, led at the time by Bouthier.

The court also sentenced the eight defendants to pay compensations of 100,000 Moroccan dirhams (over $10,000) to each of the six complainants.

The women said in 2022 they had been sacked from the firm after refusing to "give in to harassment and blackmail" by Bouthier and other French and Moroccan executives.

Such public declarations are rare in Morocco, where sexual abuse victims often face social stigma.