Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch has filed a defamation complaint against former Green MEP José Bové after he made allegations of attempted corruption on the radio last week.
As the QatarGate scandal continues to unfold, former Green MEP José Bové presented his allegations to France Inter during a broadcast.
In his allegations against the country, Bové cited the time he was rapporteur at the European Parliament’s Committee on External Trade from 2009 and 2014 and recalled his opposition to the then-discussed EU-Morrocco trade deal on fruit and vegetables.
Because of his opposition, Morocco’s then Agriculture Minister and now Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch invited Bové to “a discreet café”. They said he would have a gift for him, which the former MEP said was clearly money. But because Bové did not react, dealings between the two “stopped there”, said Bové.
Akhannouch, according to Bové, did have the backing of a “friendship association” made up of European elected representatives from all political parties.
“Some MEPs took advantage of this,” said Bové, who welcomed the decision of European Parliament President Roberta Metsola to “abolish all [the unofficial friendship groups] and revise the votes that took place”.
Following Bové’s allegations, Akhannouch filed a defamation complaint against that calls the accusations “inadmissible” and “false”- which are “only the reflection of an old resentment” of Bové, AFP reports, which consulted the document.
Akhannouch’s lawyer in France considers that “Bové is visibly and dishonestly trying to take advantage of the judicial news concerning the European Parliament, to bring out old stories without foundation”, AFP reports.
(Davide Basso | EURACTIV.fr)
Source: euractiv.com
