A French police officer has been charged with illegally sharing secret government documents in an espionage case involving France’s border police and diplomats from Morocco and Algeria. According to information published by the French daily Libération, the police officer supplied Moroccan intelligence with classified information about France’s border-control policies and procedures. He also gave the Moroccans information about the movements in France of Moroccan nationals and senior Algerian government officials.
According to the report by Libération,
the police officer, identified only as “Charles D.”, was charged on May
31 of this year with corruption and violating secrecy rules. Court
documents state that Charles D. gave away classified documents belonging
to the Direction centrale de la police aux frontières (DCPAF), a
directorate of the French National Police that is in charge of
immigration control and border protection across France. He reportedly
gave the documents to another man, identified in court documents as
“Driss A.”, who worked at Paris’ Orly Airport. It is believed that Driss
A. worked as director of the Orly branch of ICTS International, a
Dutch-based company that provides security services in several European
airports. It is also believed that Driss A. —a Moroccan-born French
citizen— was secretly employed by the Deuxième Bureau, Morocco’s
military intelligence service. It appears that the Moroccans compensated
Charles D with free holidays in Morocco in exchange for his services.
Interestingly, when French
counterintelligence officers raided Driss A.’s home in Paris, they found
documents detailing the activities of senior Algerian government
ministers during their official trips to France. The officials are
identified in the documents as Algeria’s former Deputy Prime Minister
Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, Higher Education Minister Tahar Hadjar, and
Telecommunications Minister Hamid Grine. The documents appear to have
been produced by Algerian intelligence and given initially to the
embassy of Algeria in France. No explanation has been given about how
these documents fell in Driss A.’s possession. Some observers assume
that Driss A., acting as a Moroccan intelligence operative, must have
acquired them from a source inside the Algerian embassy in Paris.
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