LaPresse: Europe Pays Tribute to Abdelatif Hamuchi the Director General of Security in Morocco

MILAN, July 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Most of the Moroccan press considers Abdelatif Hamuchi to be "the man who never sleeps" and "the best informed man in Morocco". As reported by El Pais, which devoted a long article to him, he is a character who is admired among the police and feared in other sectors of society, from jihadists to the youth of Al Hoceima, who demonstrated in 2016. The truth is that if no jihadist group has carried out an attack in Morocco in the past seven years, much of the credit is due to Abdelatif Hamuchi. Moreover, any expert of jihadism knows that Europe's security is linked to cooperation with this police officer, who was born into a humble family in the northern town of Taza in 1966, a graduate in law and the father of four children.

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He has been the Director General of Internal Security (DST, responsible for the fight against terrorism, with 8,000 agents) since 2005 and, since 2015, Director General of National Security (DGSN, with 30,000 men). On 20 February 2014 he was at the residence of the Ambassador of Morocco in Paris when four members of the French Judicial Police appeared at his door in response to accusations of torture. Hamuchi refused to appear before the French courts, and judicial cooperation between Rabat and Paris was frozen for a year. However, in June 2015 the French National Assembly approved a cooperation agreement under which complaints filed in France against Moroccan nationals accused of crimes in Morocco are sent with "priority" to Rabat, even if the victims are French.

According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the agreement promotes impunity for Moroccan officials accused of human rights violations. But France has not backtracked - in February 2015 Hamuchi was decorated with the Order of Officer of the Legion of Honour. When attacks on Paris occurred on 13 November 2015, the intervention of Morocco was essential in enabling the French authorities to find the mastermind of the attacks, the Belgian-Moroccan Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was later killed in Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris. In April 2015 the Spanish Government also honoured Hamuchi with the  Order of Police Merit.

In 2017, the role of the police was instrumental in crushing the demonstrations of Al Hoceima: the protest was suppressed after several months of arrests, and condemned as arbitrary and unfounded by various human rights organisations. This has not changed Hamuchi's relationships with the European authorities which they hope to continue to function for many years. There is nothing to suggest the opposite.