Two minors raped to cover up crime in Demnat

The prosecutor of the Azilal Court of First Instance ordered the prosecution of two detained individuals for their alleged involvement in the rape of a minor residing in Douar Toufrine, Ait Tamlil commune, Demnat district, Azilal prefecture. Two other individuals, including an official, will be prosecuted at large pending their trial, according to a statement to Yabiladi.

Fatiha Chajri, a member of the Moroccan Network for Human Rights, Asset Control and Protection of Public Funds, told Yabiladi that the public prosecutor's office has charged the first suspect in custody with abuse of a minor under 18 and indecent assault. The second suspect is accused of attempted abuse of a minor under 18 and persistent harassment of a minor through sexually explicit electronic messages. The association has hired a lawyer in coordination with the child protection association Touche Pas A Mon Enfant to assist the 16-year-old victim, she added.

Mohamed Kaba, head of the AMDH branch in Demnat, told Yabiladi that the association had previously received a request for support from the victim's father, “AA”. The association filed a complaint with the prosecutor at the Beni Mellal Court of Appeal against three people (the sheikh – a representative of the local authorities – and the detainees), accusing them of “human trafficking, indecent touching of minors, extortion, failure to report a crime, mediation to cover up a crime, coercion to sign an undertaking and identity fraud”.

“The minor was twice the victim of sexual assault, indecent touching and human trafficking by the suspects, the first time during Eid al-Adha last year and the second time in April,” he said, adding that one of the suspects had previously been prosecuted for indecent touching of a minor in Taklast, Ait Tamlil.

He explained that one of the suspects had previously been accused of raping a minor in Taklast, Ait Tamlil, and that he had been caught red-handed by the victim's uncle over a year ago. When the uncle threatened to file a complaint, the first suspect intervened as a figure of authority (sheikh) to persuade the minor's mother not to file a complaint and offered reconciliation.

Attempting to cover up the attack

The accused, who attacked the victim last year during Eid al-Adha, reached an agreement with the victim's father “by paying 10,000 dirhams and leaving the village for a year in exchange for not reporting him.”

“The failure to report this crime in a timely manner, either by the minor's parents or by a member of his family, has encouraged a group of human monsters with homosexual tendencies to abuse the minor and take advantage of his weakness, fragility and lack of education to attack him many times after this incident,” the activist said.

He added that the minor's mother was surprised last April when she checked WhatsApp on her son's phone and found voice messages from the third defendant's phone “containing a sexual conversation in which the minor asked the victim to repeat the act of having sexual intercourse with him as he had done on previous occasions,” according to the complaint, a copy of which was seen by Yabiladi.

She decided to file a complaint and take her son to a doctor to obtain a medical certificate, but the officer intervened again to dissuade her from filing the complaint, telling her that he would seek appropriate compensation from the third suspect, just as he had done with the other suspect, while also forcing him to leave the village for two full years.

“Instead, the man of authority tried to incriminate two other rivals who had nothing to do with the incident. He told the victim their names and released an audio recording in which the victim accused them. The third suspect paid 10,000 dirhams and signed a commitment in the Ait Tamlil community that he would not visit the village for two years. The 'sheikh' gave 7,000 dirhams to the victim's father and kept the rest.”

In its complaint, the association requested a medical examination of the minor victim as well as a technical examination of the phones of the suspects and the minor victim in order to identify all the numbers through which he was contacted and to arrest all those involved in the attack.

The association also called for measures to prevent the suspects from having contact with the victim and to prevent him from making concrete statements, as the suspect, who has a tape recording of the underage victim, has already done.

The trial against those involved is scheduled for August 26.

In addition to this incident, Mohamed Kaba said that the AMDH received a complaint from a woman from Boughrart, Imlil, who complained of the repeated sexual abuse of her 13-year-old daughter, who attends a middle school, by a single individual.