Tags : Morocco, Belgium, Abdelkader Belliraj,

« After spending seventeen years in a Moroccan prison, Belgian Abdelkhader Belliraj (67) was unexpectedly released on Sunday evening. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Morocco for six murders he confessed to after a month of torture. ‘He only realized it when the prison staff helped him pack his books.’

Just before midnight, Rachida Hatti in Everberg saw an unknown number with a Moroccan prefix appear on her screen.

‘It was totally, absolutely unexpected,’ says her lawyer Abderrahim Lahlali. ‘It was her husband. And he said, « I have been released. » Mrs. Hatti is currently too emotional to speak to the media. She is overwhelmed with joy. This is the end of a struggle that lasted seventeen years. Their three children are now in their twenties, having grown up with only a few images of their father.’

In early 2008, it became known that the Belgian-Moroccan ACV trade union militant Abdelkhader Belliraj had confessed to six murders committed in Brussels between 1988 and 1989. These included the murders of a grocer, a hairdresser, Imam Abdullah al-Ahdal and an employee of the Grand Mosque of Brussels, a member of the Saudi embassy, and Jewish leader Joseph Wybran.

Skeptical

Skepticism prevailed among those familiar with these cold cases, as in the case of the hairdresser, everything indicated that he was killed for concealing his HIV infection from a sexual partner. The murder of the imam, on the other hand, seemed to be related to his moderate stance on the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against writer Salman Rushdie.

Belliraj was known as a free thinker and an active opponent of King Mohammed VI. It is precisely he who has now granted him clemency at the end of Ramadan.

During his trials, which led to a life sentence in 2010, it emerged that Belliraj had made the confessions in Arabic, a language he did not speak. According to one of his confessions, he smuggled weapons into Morocco by hiding them in the fuel tank of a car, but the type of fuel it subsequently ran on was never clarified.

‘I was tortured incessantly,’ Belliraj said in early 2010 in a telephone conversation from the Moroccan prison with De Morgen. ‘For a month, my handcuffs were not removed. I was hung upside down, for hours on end. They administered electric shocks to me.’

‘Total Surprise’

The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office opened an investigation in 2008 into his involvement in the six murders but found only exculpatory evidence. In late 2013, it was announced that they would request a dismissal of the case. In 2023, Belliraj’s life sentence in Morocco was commuted to 25 years in prison.

‘From that point on, we knew it could happen someday,’ says Lahlali. ‘Yet, it came as a total surprise. He only realized it when the prison staff helped him pack his books.’

Belliraj is currently staying with friends in Marrakesh, but it is expected that he wants to return to Belgium as soon as possible. ‘He is a Belgian citizen,’ says lawyer Lahlali. ‘I am leaving for Morocco shortly to arrange his residence documents, which have of course all expired.' »

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