journalist Rachid M’Barki indicted | EUROtoday
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PRoughly two years after his dismissal from BFMTV for severe misconduct, journalist Rachid M’Barki was indicted, Friday December 8, 2023, for breach of belief and passive non-public corruption, in response to a judicial supply this Tuesday December 19, confirming the knowledge from Release. Rachid M’Barki refutes all these accusations. This resolution was taken as a part of the investigation into suspicions of overseas interference in French politics and present affairs.
The latter was initiated after a criticism from BFMTV and a global investigation, in mid-February, by the collective of journalists Forbidenn Stories, to which Radio France and The world. It pointed to the actions of an Israeli firm, nicknamed Team Jorge, specializing in disinformation for the good thing about totally different shoppers, together with States.
The investigation was entrusted in October to investigating magistrates, in a judicial investigation opened for numerous offenses, together with breach of belief, corruption and affect peddling of public officers and even laundering of aggravated tax fraud.
Contentious briefs broadcast on BFMTV
In the case of Rachid M’Barki on BFMTV, she pointed to contentious briefs broadcast in 2021 and 2022 and referring to Russian oligarchs, in Qatar, Sudan, Cameroon, and even Western Sahara, and which might have been “provided turnkey on behalf of foreign clients,” according to the investigative consortium. The general director of the news channel Marc-Olivier Fogiel accused, in January 2022, the presenter of “arranging to ask [des] images at the last minute” to illustrate news items, “once the editor-in-chief was taken on another installment and had validated his entire newspaper”.READ ALSO Suspicions of interference at BFMTV: Rachid M’Barki defends himself
Rachid M’Barki was then dismissed in February 2022 for serious misconduct by Altice, the group to which this channel which filed the complaint belongs. An internal investigation was also opened.
When asked, his lawyer was not able to respond immediately on Tuesday. For their part, neither the BFMTV channel nor Altice’s lawyer wished to make comments.
Two lobbyists also indicted
If the ex-presenter deplored a “media lynching” and “pure slander”, he admitted having broadcast images provided by “one of his informants”, the lobbyist Jean-Pierre Duthion. Some of these images related to an economic forum between Morocco and Spain, organized in Western Sahara. Rachid M’Barki assured that these were “neutral images” and always denied having been paid by Jean-Pierre Duthion. He also claimed to have had “at no time the impression […] that he may work for somebody who was making an attempt to govern info.”
The lobbyist, who was positioned below judicial supervision, and Qatar specialist Nabil Ennasri have been additionally indicted final October. The latter is especially accused of breach of belief, corruption and affect peddling of public officers, laundering of aggravated tax fraud. He was positioned in pre-trial detention.
Nabil Ennasri, writer of a number of works on Qatar, is suspected of getting been the agent of affect of the Qatari monarchy, notably on the time of the Football World Cup, in response to the newspaper The Parisian who had talked about funds of cash from Nabil Ennasri to Jean-Pierre Duthion. Investigators “suspect a link” between the 2, a supply near the investigation instructed AFP.
The judges are additionally excited by an intervention within the National Assembly by the elected environmentalist Hubert Julien-Laferrière, who had praised in February 2022, on the request of the lobbyist, LimoCoin, a cryptocurrency linked to a Cameroonian businessman , which turned out to be a rip-off.
During his listening to in March by a parliamentary fee of inquiry into overseas interference, Marc-Olivier Fogiel indicated that Jean-Pierre Duthion had “tried to contact other journalists from BFMTV after the departure of Rachid M’Barki […] to offer them other types of information, in quotes, which did not catch their interest.” One of them was allegedly supplied “retribution”.
https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/soupcons-d-ingerence-a-bfmtv-le-journaliste-rachid-m-barki-mis-en-examen-19-12-2023-2547737_23.php#xtor=RSS-221