The confessions that crack the Makhzen open: Morocco's former intelligence No. 2 speaks — and Rabat trembles

Sofiane Hamdi — Alger, Algérie — 2026-09-09

There are silences that protect, and words that destroy. When a former number two of Morocco's external intelligence services takes the floor in a French weekly, this is no mere indiscretion: it is a crack in the edifice. Mehdi Hajaoui, former head of the Action service of the Directorate-General for Studies and Documentation (DGED), former shadow adviser at the Royal Palace, on the run since 2024, has given Le Canard Enchaîné confessions that cast a stark light on the methods of a regime that propaganda presents as a model of stability. And what he recounts deserves more than a news brief: it deserves to be set down in writing, because it concerns Algeria, Western Sahara, Africa and Europe.

Let us begin with Ceuta, because it is the most recent lie. In 2026, nearly 70,000 young Moroccans crossed the border of the Spanish enclave — a mass exodus that ended in the drowning of more than 140 Moroccan citizens in the Mediterranean. Rabat's official version? The authorities were allegedly "surprised", overwhelmed by a spontaneous youth movement. Hajaoui demolishes that version: in his view, an operation of such magnitude could not have unfolded without the approval or the benevolent neutrality of the kingdom's highest security authorities. A report by the Spanish border police, dated 3 September, speaks of the "total permissiveness" of the Moroccan forces. Let us spell it out: this was not an accident but an instrument — migratory pressure wielded as a weapon against Spain. And the man saying so is the one who was at the helm of Morocco's external intelligence.

Then comes Pegasus, the scandal that refuses to die. Hajaoui confirms what the investigations of Amnesty International and the Forbidden Stories collective had already documented: the Israeli spyware, developed by NSO Group, was presented to Rabat as early as February 2017, tested on internal equipment, then rolled out on a large scale. The targets? Foreign heads of state — including French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — as well as political leaders, journalists and African leaders, notably during the African Union summit in Kigali in March 2018. A state that spies on friendly heads of state, on journalists and on opponents: that is the portrait of a regime that mistakes intelligence for blanket surveillance. And the man saying so is one of its own.

There is also the torture, because it must be called by its name. Hajaoui attests to the statements of Zakaria Moumni, a former kickboxing champion arrested in 2010 and held at the Témara centre, who claims he was abducted and tortured. The former senior official confirms that senior security officials were present at the brutal interrogations the athlete was subjected to. Legal proceedings had been initiated in Paris in 2014; they ended in a dismissal without prosecution, after judicial cooperation agreements between Paris and Rabat. Here we can measure the price of "realpolitik": the torture of a citizen is erased before strategic interests — including the security arrangements for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

And a word must be said about the method of those who, for years, have accused Algeria of the worst evils. While the Moroccan press denounces an Algerian "regime", while Rabat's editorialists deliver human rights lectures, one of their own — trained in his youth by the Mossad, having held the highest positions in intelligence — describes a system that orchestrates migratory crises, spies on friendly heads of state and covers up torture. Algeria, for its part, has never needed to spy on its neighbours in order to exist, has never organised an exodus as a diplomatic weapon, and has never left torture unanswered. The difference between the two models has never been so clear — and it is a Moroccan who has just drawn it.

So what is to be done with these confessions? Verify them, first: they cross-check with the Amnesty investigations, with Forbidden Stories, with the Spanish reports and with Moumni's statements — a coherence that lends them a weight Rabat's official denials will never have. Set them down in writing, next: what Hajaoui describes is not an internal Moroccan affair, it is the documented proof of a mode of government that spills over into Europe, Africa and Western Sahara. And ponder them, finally: when a regime must spy on its allies, orchestrate crises and smother torture in order to hold on, it is because it no longer holds on except through fear — and fear always ends up turning against the one who wields it.

One last thing, for the road. Hajaoui's confessions do not make Algeria a winner: they make the truth a winner. Algeria does not need the Makhzen to collapse in order to move forward — it moves forward, with its construction sites, its roads, its airports and its diplomacy. But when the truth about the methods of those who have attacked it for decades bursts into broad daylight, it is only right to record it, without triumphalism and without naivety. Regimes that live on illusion always end up meeting a man who speaks. That man's name is Mehdi Hajaoui. And Rabat, this morning, knows that silences come to an end.