Moroccan court upholds six-year sentence for journalist Omar Radi

Moroccan journalist and rights activist Omar Radi has been sentenced on appeal to six years in prison on spying and rape charges.

Radi, a 35-year-old freelance journalist and a vocal critic of the authorities, has insisted on his innocence throughout his two-year-long trial.

“My only fault is to have demanded independent justice,” Radi said before the judge’s verdict, to applause from supporters in the courtroom. Accused of undermining state security with “foreign financing” and of rape, Radi was initially sentenced last July.

His trial began in 2020 just days after human rights group Amnesty International said Moroccan authorities had planted Pegasus spyware on his cellphone.

Rights activists, intellectuals and politicians both inside the country and abroad had protested Radi’s arrest and detention.

Earlier this week, the prosecution had called for “the maximum sentence” against him.