Dubai, Special Correspondence - Moroccan ambassador to the UAE is facing a mess of his own making following a "malicious complaint" lodged against a Moroccan citizen by a female employee at the Moroccan Consulate in Dubai.
Although the case was eventually dropped, its repercussions are far from over and may cost the ambassador his job.
When withdrawing her complaint, the plaintiff confessed in writing to the public prosecution that she had initiated the case "at the request of his Excellency the Ambassador".
This significant detail mentioned in the report related to the complaint withdrawal, turned out to be the key element in this case and a huge source of embarrassment to the diplomat who previously repeatedly told his superiors in Rabat that "he had nothing at all to do with this case".
However, it's widely believed within Moroccan circles in the UAE that the ambassador holds a "long-standing, personal grudge" against the defendant who is a member of an official Moroccan advisory council (set up by King Mohammed VI) dealing with Moroccan community abroad, and a senior manager at a well-known Dubai-based Arabic-language satellite television channel.
The defendant is adamant that the ambassador has been involved in "a two-year long dirty tricks campaign" to discredit him within the Moroccan community in the UAE and among colleagues in his workplace.For him, this "malicious case" filed against him is the latest in a series of "endless, unethical acts orchestrated by the Moroccan representative".
The defendant received summons to Dubai public prosecutor's office where the accusations of "insults, defamation and threatening behaviour" were read to him, before being interrogated for a lengthy time.
In the course of the interrogation, the public prosecution officer warned the defendant that the accusations levelled against him were "quite serious and carry a potential jail sentence of up to three years".
After providing the officer with his testimony, the defendant was asked to sign a bail order requiring that he would report in to the authorities whenever he was ordered to do so. He eventually left the public prosecution's office in disbelief and anger, and with no doubt that the whole issue was masterminded by the ambassador.
Although the case was eventually withdrawn following the swift intervention of the Moroccan foreign ministry, the whole issue is still haunting the ambassador since the defendant is considering a lawsuit to seek compensation for "damage to his reputation and for injured feelings".
The prospect of being summoned to the court is not something the ambassador would like to hear or to contemplate, bearing in mind that this implies a possible request for waiver of his diplomatic immunity. And to add to his misery, he was apparently unable to provide a convincing reply to the "inquiry memo" from Rabat as to why he did not seek clearance from the Moroccan foreign ministry and why the UAE foreign ministry was not informed about the case before it landed on the public prosecution's desk? These are basic diplomatic standard and norms set up by Geneva conventions, which the Moroccan diplomat may have chosen to ignore at his own peril.
The ambassador's clumsiness in dealing with this case, along with another incident involving a Moroccan air hostess, who was also taken to court by the Consulate for allegedly "threatening an employee", has already caused a high degree of diplomatic embarrassment to both Rabat and Abu Dhabi.
Besides, the media coverage of these cases is rapidly gaining momentum in Morocco and the more it goes on, the more pressure is on the Moroccan foreign ministry to act and to provide an answer to this case.
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