Several employees of French insurance magnate Jacques Bouthier, arrested for raping a minor in Paris, have been taken into Moroccan custody, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said on Friday.
The employees appeared before prosecutors in the northern city of Tangier earlier this week and a judge placed “five of them under a placement order” while the sixth was released, lawyer Karima Salama told AFP.
Bouthier, 75 and one of France’s richest men, is ex-CEO of insurance group Assu2000, later renamed Vilavi.
He was charged on May 21 and arrested by Paris prosecutors following a preliminary investigation into allegations of human trafficking and the rape of a minor.
A French man and five Moroccan suspects, including two women, are accused of “recruiting and psychologically nurturing” women, said Salama of the Moroccan Association for Victims’ Rights (AMDV).
“They also justified[Bouthier’s]behavior,” she said.
Several young Moroccan women filed a complaint against Bouthier last month, accusing him of various acts of “human trafficking, sexual harassment and verbal and moral violence” between 2018 and this year, according to Salama.
Some told a press conference at the time that they had been subjected to repeated sexual harassment and intimidation and threats to their jobs in a city where many people are struggling to find work.
The women said they were fired after refusing to “give in to harassment and blackmail” over their employment by Bouthier and other French and Moroccan executives.
Such public statements are rare in Morocco, where victims of sexual abuse often face social stigma.
AMDV on Friday appealed to all other victims to “break the wall of fear and take an active part in the fight against impunity for people who have seriously violated their dignity as women”.
Bouthier also faces criminal charges in France for conspiracy to kidnap, kidnapping in an organized gang and possession of child pornography.
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