Story Killers Investigation: Prison, Raids Targeting Morocco’s French Lobbyists

Franco-Moroccan journalist Rachid M’barki was sacked from the French news channel BFMTV in February 2023, for violating the editorial staff’s professional rules by presenting Western Sahara as Moroccan on the nightly news.

The case did not stop at firing M’barki. Still, the investigation continued to reach an organized network working to influence and spread misinformation in the French media, to serve the agendas of the Moroccan regime.

The case reached the corridors of French justice, where one of the lobbyists, Jean-Pierre Duthion, was subjected to investigation and placed under judicial supervision before his residence was raided by the judicial police after he confessed in the inquiry to receiving money from a Frenchman of Moroccan origins, the “lobbyist”, Nabil Ennasri, who was placed in pre-trial detention.

After forty-eight hours in police custody, lobbyist Jean-Pierre Duthion and political scientist specializing in Qatar Nabil Ennasri were indicted on Wednesday, October 4, as part of a judicial investigation into suspicions of corruption or drug trafficking, influence around French personalities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from a judicial source. They are suspected of foreign interference in France, particularly for the benefit of Qatar.

Subjecting the French lobbyist who works for the Moroccan regime to judicial prosecution came after the investigation titled “Story Killers” on media misinformation was published last February by the consortium of “Forbidden Stories,” the newspaper “Le Monde,” and 15 other media outlets, just as happened earlier with the investigation carried out by the same consortium, which showed with evidence that the Moroccan regime spied on and hacked, using the Zionist “Pegasus” spyware, the phones of the French President, Emmanuel Macron, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, and many European ministers, as well as the phones of thousands of opposition personalities in Morocco, officials and media professionals in Algeria.

Jean-Pierre Duthion asked the Franco-Moroccan journalist, Rachid M’barki, who was fired from the BFMTV channel for publishing news that served the Moroccan interest, according to the results of investigations obtained by French radio from sources dealing with this file and due to his repeated interventions on behalf of external parties, including the Moroccan regime, he was placed under judicial supervision on Monday, October 2, 2023, before his home was searched on Wednesday, October 4, 2023.

The strange thing is that the work that Jean-Pierre Duthion was carrying out was planned by the Zionist entity, and precisely by a study office specializing in influence, led by former military personnel and intelligence men from the usurping entity.

As for the focus of the investigation currently underway with the man of the Moroccan regime in France, it revolves around whether Jean-Pierre Duthion gave money to the Franco-Moroccan journalist sacked from the BFMTV channel, in exchange for his defence of Moroccan interests in the channel and his violation of the journalistic ethics by describing the Western Sahara as Morocco’s Sahara.

The scandal is being investigated by two judges at the French National Financial Prosecutor, who have extensive resources at their disposal, particularly abroad. At a minimum, the investigation focuses on two episodes and their possible counterparts, and it is also heading to take unexpected dimensions, Le Monde newspaper confirms, citing judicial sources who have not ruled out directing a judicial delegation to Morocco to cooperate in the investigation in preparation for bringing charges against Moroccan officials of involvement in influence trading.

In another case involving Jean-Pierre Duthion, revealed by Mediapart, the environmentalist MP for the Rhône Hubert Julien-Laferrière was also searched. He is suspected of having promoted a cryptocurrency in Cameroon in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, in February 2022. The national financial prosecutor’s office is investigating possible “corruption of a public official” there. These two files were grouped within the same preliminary investigation by the French National Financial Prosecutor.

The issue did not stop at placing Jean-Pierre Duthion and Nabil Ennasri under judicial supervision and pre-trial on suspicion of involvement in the practice of media misinformation, by influencing the French media, to serve the agendas of the Moroccan regime. Rather, serious charges were brought against them, such as corruption, trafficking in influence, peddling of public officials, belonging to organized gangs, breach of trust, money laundering and laundering of aggravated tax fraud.