The former president of Moroccan football club Raja Casablanca was detained after being extradited from Germany, a judicial source said Friday, amid reports he had been accused of fraud.
Mohamed Boudrika “was extradited to Morocco on Thursday evening and placed in pre-trial detention at Oukacha prison” in Casablanca, the source said on condition of anonymity.
They added Boudrika’s detention had been ordered by an investigating judge but did not disclose the charges against the 41-year-old businessman.
A former member of parliament for the National Rally of Independents (RNI) — the party of Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch — Boudrika is suspected of “fraud” and “issuing cheques without sufficient funds”, Moroccan media reported Thursday.
He had been held in custody in Hamburg since July 2024 after an international arrest warrant was issued by Moroccan authorities, according to the reports.
His predecessor at the helm of Raja Casablanca, Aziz El Badraoui, has been in pre-trial detention since February 2024 over corruption charges.
Boudrika’s case comes as another high-profile football-related trial is working its way through the courts, this one involving Wydad Casablanca club ex-president Said Naciri and the former head of a regional council in eastern Morocco, Abdennabi Bioui.
Both defendants — former officials of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), a member of the country’s ruling coalition — have been in custody since the end of 2023.
They are accused of fraud, as well as “possession, marketing, and export of drugs” within a network led by Malian drug trafficker Ahmed Ben Brahim — dubbed the “Pablo Escobar of the Sahara”.
Naciri denied again on Friday separate allegations of property fraud.
The trial is the first in Morocco to see prominent political figures accused in a drug trafficking case. It is set to continue on May 9.
The case involves 25 people alleged to have played roles in the trafficking network of Ben Brahim, who is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Morocco.
