Appendix IV: Police Statements Attributed to Two Defendants in the Gdeim Izik Trial
The following are the full statements attributed by the police to two of the defendants in the Gdeim Izik trial. They are provided as examples of the police statements that lay at the heart of the trial. To the prosecution, they were “confessions” that constituted the main piece of evidence against the defendants. The defense countered that that the court should discard these statements because they were false and, in many cases, extracted through police torture.
Naâma Asfari
(Translated from Arabic)
Asfari Statement Dated November 8, 2011, as prepared by the Gendarmerie of El-Ayoun
Naâma Asfari, son of Abdi son of Sidi Ahmed son of Moussa, Moroccan, born on August 1, 1970 in Tan-Tan and residing there at 3 Aït Lahcen street, graduate student, whose mother is Lemouaghef bent Mohamed Lehbib, carrying the Moroccan ID No. JF-11056.
Convicted in January 2007 and sentenced to a suspended term of two months of prison for insulting a public official (a police brigadier).
Convicted in August 2009 and sentenced to four months of prison (served) by the district court of Tan-Tan for insulting an official in the course of his duty (a security guard).
I was born in 1970 in Tan-Tan, and spent my childhood in Legsabi in Guelmime. I graduated primary school and pursued my preparatory and secondary studies in Guelmime, at the Al-Hadhrami preparatory school and the Mohammed V secondary school, respectively. After obtaining the baccalaureate in 1990, I studied at the Faculty of Law and Economics, Al-Qadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh. I graduated in 1994, and in 1995-1996, obtained a graduate diploma in political science from the same university. In 1997-1998 I underwent training to obtain a license as a notary public, but did not complete it. Late in 1998, I got a visa to France and enrolled as a student at the University of Saint Denis [sic], where I obtained a masters degree (maîtrise) in law, then a graduate diploma (diplôme d’études approfondies) from Nanterre University in public freedoms and human rights. I have since 2005 been working on my doctoral thesis, to be defended later this year, concerning “political obstacles in partnership conventions between the European Union and the Maghreb countries (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia).” I am married to a French woman, aged 49, who teaches history and geography in Paris.
While planning for a mass exodus by families of El-Ayoun to settle in tents outside the city, in protest against their social and economic conditions, and while trying to realize this project, to spread discord and terror, and destabilize the security of that city and its environs, I had earlier cooperated with Mohamed Embarek Lefkir in two attempts that the authorities successfully thwarted. We had success with the third attempt thanks to proper planning.
In order to highlight the social demands of the camp-dwellers, which succeeded because of my close coordination with them and my activism with some NGOs, I started soliciting and receiving funds from people involved in associations abroad, who believed that their money would be employed in charities, while the plan's deeper purpose was to finance the plan for the camp, to organize volunteers from among the people of the area, and to recruit them in missions that would compromise public security and restrict the freedom of movement for those held inside the camp, while exposing as false the image of a calm and peaceful city, as it was being portrayed to public opinion.
Thus I came to impose my will on the camp, and my recommendations were obeyed by its organizational committees. Any negotiation with the authorities was always met by disapproval on my part, in an attempt to gain time so as to bring as much attention from the media as possible to the cause, which would serve my personal interests.
As for the knives found in my possession, and now displayed by you before me, it was my intention to give them to the camp's internal security personnel, to use them in intimidating some camp dwellers who expressed a wish to go back to El-Ayoun permanently. This we achieved, up until the intervention of the public forces.
Q: Did you follow all the phases of negotiations between the camp's coordination committee and the region's local authority, in order to resolve the camp dwellers’ problems?
A: I charged Mohamed Bourial, Embarek Souiyeh, Hocine Zaoui, Lefdeil Redouan, Daich Daf, Toubali and others with this task.
Q: What were the goals of this project of yours?
A: It was essentially one goal: to create chaos and destabilize public security. Because I thought that holding camp dwellers at the camp would eventually compel the public forces to intervene, and thus spread chaos to the city of El-Ayoun, and possibly other cities in Morocco.
Q: What motivated you to solicit foreign funds?
A: I used them to finance the organizational cells of the camp, and to hold the camp dwellers inside in order to counter any intervention by the public forces.
Q: Who were the persons charged with carrying out your orders inside the camp? And what were their tasks?
A: They were Brahim Ismaïli, Mohamed Embarek Lefkir, Abdeljalil Laâroussi, Ahmed Sbaï, Lahmad Khattari & Hassan Dah. As for their tasks, they were to counter any attack by the public forces, to kill their personnel and to burn and destroy their equipment by the use of Molotov cocktails and gas cylinders.
Q: Why did this idea occur to you?
A: I undertook these operations to avenge our community for their deteriorating living, social and economic conditions, and for the way that the state gives priority and preferential treatment to people who are not the original population of El-Ayoun.
Q: You spoke earlier of deliberately stalling the dialogue with the authorities, in order to gain time until your scheme drew enough attention to serve your cause. What did you mean by this?
A: I convinced the members of the dialogue committee to employ evasion tactics with the local authorities, by giving false promises of being prepared to evacuate the camp if the social demands of the residents were met. The real purpose of this was to gain more time, so as to facilitate bringing in more camp dwellers to augment their ranks and increase the camp's size, thus making a bigger impression on the media and gaining an advantage in the confrontation with the public forces.
Q: Do you feel remorse for the scheme of bringing discord and chaos to the region?
A: I feel no remorse for what I have done, and am willing to do it again until the cause triumphs.
Q: Did you encounter any harassment while entering the camp?
A: I came and went freely, with no harassment whatsoever from the public forces personnel, although I have two prior cases of attacking police personnel in Smara.
Q: How did you manage to run the camp while coordinating with the other members of your cell inside?
A: The whole group responsible for running the camp was in constant contact with me through the representative of different committees, which I supplied with logistical and financial support in order to achieve the mission successfully.
Q: Do you have anything to add to your statement?
A: This is all I have to say.
[At the end of this statement is the following:]
The signatory is literate and he read his statement himself and confirmed it without addition or deletion. He signed it in the statement book.
Mohamed Lamine Haddi
(Translated from Arabic)
Haddi Statement Dated November 20, 2011, as prepared by the Gendarmerie of El-Ayoun
[On November 21, 2010, at 12:00 p.m., we continued our investigation of the matter by interrogating one Mohamed Lamine Haddi. After confronting him with the allegations against him, he gave the following statement.]
Mohamed Lamine Haddi, son of Ahmed Salem, son of Abidine, Moroccan, born in 1980 in El-Ayoun, and residing at 257 Wlaily street, El-Ayoun, out of work, whose mother is Manina Bent Mohamed. He is single, and his national ID card number is SH.102367.
Judicial antecedents: [The suspect] said he has none.
As already mentioned, I was born in 1980 in the city of El-Ayoun to a very poor family. I started my studies at the Bir Anzarane primary school, from which I graduated to the Hassan I preparatory school. I failed to complete my studies there, and left the school during the fourth preparatory year. The reason for this was my family's inability to pay the necessary school costs. In 1997, I joined the Vocational Training Institute, to specialize in plumbing. I studied there for two full years, and after graduating, I worked as a plumber for three years. My father's health deteriorated and he could no longer tend his goats, so I had to relieve him. I took care of the herd for quite a while. In early 2006, I applied for a license to drive a small taxi and obtained one. With that license I drove a small taxi in the city of El-Ayoun until the time of my arrest.
As for the circumstances which directly involved me in the incidents at the Gdeim Izik camp, I will now relate them with precision and in detail.
The idea of a mass exodus by Sahrawi residents of El-Ayoun, to settle in a camp to be built on the outskirts of the town, was conceived by certain persons. Chief among them are Naâma Asfari and Mohamed Bourial. These two were instigated by foreign parties whose main and sole purpose is to destabilize the security of the Sahrawi regions and harm the internal security of Morocco. For that purpose they went to work, attracting each and every one who could help them carry out this idea. I was among the first persons contacted by Asfari and his circle. He laid out his plans to me, saying that in the beginning a vast segment of Sahrawi citizens would be recruited, under the guise of lobbying the state for their social rights. This would entail the influx of vast numbers of Sahrawi citizens into the camp, at a site that had already been chosen. And he explained that the large number of displaced Sahrawi people would serve as a bargaining chip, to be waved in front of the authorities. It would also allow us clandestinely to carry out our subversive scheme, under cover of the thronging citizens and their demands for improved social conditions.
The idea of mass exodus worked, and huge numbers of citizens marched to the Gdeim Izik camp. A meeting took place among, on the one hand, Asfari, Bourial and Sidi Abderrahmane Zayou – the true masterminds of the camp idea –and other persons who were recruited later, on the other. Those were Abdallah Lekhfawni, Abdeljalil Laâroussi, Mohamed Embarek Lefkir, Brahim Ismaïli, Hocine Zaoui, Abdallah Toubali, Mohamed Boutabâa, Ahmed Sbaï, Embarek Soueyeh, Sidi Abdallah Abhah and others whose names I cannot recall at the moment. During the aforementioned meeting, they suggested the formation of specialized security teams that would be subject to a strict hierarchical command, at the top of which is Asfari, Bourial and Sidi Abderrahmane Zayou. Zayou was special adviser to Asfari, although he moved stealthily in the wings and was very keen on secrecy. They also suggested dividing up the camp into separate security zones, and set its geographical borders, to wrest it from the authority of the state. In light of the physical prowess of Abdeljalil Laâroussi, he was chosen to head those security teams, under the direct supervision of Asfari and his above-mentioned aides. The goal of forming those teams was to subjugate the camp population to get them to serve the purposes of the subversive scheme.
When all this was gradually achieved, and the plan carried out to the letter, we faced the problem of the local authorities and security forces. The local authorities made commendable efforts to peacefully disperse the camp, having acquiesced to the citizens' demands, and enabled a portion of them to realize their aspirations. Consequently, many citizens declared their wish to leave the camp.
Faced with this problem, Asfari and his aides, after consulting with Zayou, decided to mobilize all security teams, and gave the latter strict orders to prevent all citizens from leaving the camp, through intimidation or even detention if need be. And so the camp was surrounded by guards on all sides, which largely contributed to sabotaging all resolution initiatives attempted by the local authority. Meanwhile, under direct orders from Asfari, I was charged with following the movements of the security forces and reporting on them daily. In those reports, I included the strength of these forces and the number of vehicles they had, and surveyed the locations where they were deployed. In light of these reports, Asfari, Bourial, Zayou and Abdeljalil [Laâroussi] would lay down a plan to defend the camp in case the security forces overran it.
The plan involved targeting the members of the security forces and dispersing them, then disabling them individually or in groups by running them over with SUVs. In order to accomplish my mission, and at the request of Asfari, I tracked the movements of the security forces with a video camera he supplied. I delivered the footage to him immediately after shooting it. He, in turn, would send it to outside parties, while I would put it online.
When I detected suspicious movements among the security forces, I hurried to notify Asfari and his aides and also Abdeljalil Laâroussi, which led them to mobilize all the camp guards. I also visited each guard at his post, and supplied them all with the Molotov cocktail bottles that I participated in making. At dawn, it became clear that a showdown was imminent, as we saw the security forces bearing down on the camp. I told Asfari that I wanted to stay by his side to protect him, but he refused and insisted I take my place among the ranks deployed to defend the camp. I disobeyed that order and took a SUV, one of many prepared in advance to attack members of the security forces. Inside the SUV, I found persons who I could not identify, including the driver. When the infantry of the security forces were a stone's throw away, I started egging the driver on, telling him to attack them. He took off at break-neck speed and mowed them down with such force that their bones cracked. In the ensuing melee, I got out of the vehicle and secretly joined the throngs that were about to leave the camp, and among them some guards who were thus able to avoid arrest. On our way to the city of El-Ayoun, I participated with their help in intercepting a bus belonging to the Office Chérifien des Phosphates [OCP], which we sabotaged and burned completely. On the same day, after reaching El-Ayoun and while going down Smara Avenue, I joined a group of hooligans in looting and burning private property. When the security forces were about to regain control of the situation, I went back home at about 3:00 p.m., where I hid until quiet was restored.
I was recruited by Asfari.
I was charged by him with the mission of spying on the security forces.
I submitted to him reports about the security forces' movements.
At the request of Asfari, I shot footage of the security forces' movements.
Sidi Abderrahmane Zayou was Asfari's special advisor.
He was in full knowledge of the intended subversive scheme.
The latter was party to the scheme.
I supplied camp guards with Molotov cocktails prior to the security forces’ entry.
The plan to defend the camp was laid down based on the information I provided.
During the morning of the security forces’ entry, I took a SUV and instigated its driver to run over the infantry of the security forces.
We were able by means of this vehicle to injure many of them and kill some.
I participated in burning a bus belonging to the Office Chérifien des Phosphates [OCP].
I joined a group of looters in downtown El-Ayoun and actively joined them in looting and burning private property.
This is all I have to say.
[At the end of the statement is the following:]
The signatory is literate and he dictated his statement himself. He agrees that the contents of this text is neither more nor less than what he said, and has put the print of his right thumb to the statement book in acknowledgment thereof.
