Mounir Laymouri says he did not run.
The Tangier mayor, currently in Spain and the subject of a national search notice in the investigation into suspected election irregularities at Al Qods school, told Le360 on Sunday that he intends to return to Morocco on Monday.
“Contrary to the false insinuations, I have nothing to do with this case and I did not flee Morocco,” Laymouri said by telephone. “In principle, I am due to return to Tangier on Monday after a business trip to Spain.”
The return would bring the PAM politician before investigators who had gone to his home seeking to question him and arrange a confrontation with one of the suspects in the case.
Laymouri, who also headed PAM’s election campaign in Tangier, had left Morocco for Spain on Thursday evening. A national search notice was subsequently issued after one of the people under investigation cited his name during questioning, according to an authorized source.
Five people are being pursued over the events at Al Qods school in Casabarata, among them two polling-station presidents and their two deputies. Four have appeared before prosecutors, while the fifth remained in police custody.
The prosecution’s account of what happened inside the school has become considerably clearer since the first arrest on election day.
According to preliminary findings made public on Saturday, a deputy polling-station president removed a batch of ballots from inside his station with the help of its president, hid them in a bag and carried them out of the school.
Prosecutors say he then worked with others to reintroduce the papers into two polling stations.
The seized ballots presented investigators with another discrepancy: the ink used on them differed from that being used inside the polling stations.
Prosecutors have asked an investigating judge to open a judicial investigation into suspected interference with voting operations, falsification and participation in those alleged offenses.
One of the suspects cited Laymouri while being questioned, according to information obtained by Le360, prompting judicial police to go to the mayor’s home to hear him and arrange a confrontation with that person, who is also a PAM member.
PAM has separately challenged the accusations surrounding the Tangier vote. Its collective leadership described them after polling day as a “malicious and fabricated campaign” and a “political plot,” claiming incidents reported at some polling stations were part of a “carefully staged scenario” intended to damage the party.
The party nevertheless backed the opening of a judicial investigation to establish what happened.
