Abdellatif Hamouchi
| Abdellatif Hammouchi عبد اللطيف الحموشي |
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|---|---|
| Director of the DGST | |
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Assumed office 15 December 2005 |
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| Preceded by | Ahmed Harrari |
| Advisor to Mohammed VI on counter-terrorism | |
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Assumed office 1999 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 1966 (age 50–51) Fes, Morocco |
Abdellatif Hammouchi (Arabic: عبد اللطيف الحموشي; born 1966 in Fes, Morocco) is the head of the Moroccan secret services, the DGST (Formerly known as the DST, French: Direction de surveillance du territoire). He is also an advisor to Mohammed VI on terrorism-related affairs.
Hammouchi's organisation has faced accusations of torture and abductions of mainly political opponents, people suspected of terrorism and Sahrawi dissidents. On 20 February 2014, while Hammouchi was attending a meeting with French officials in Paris, he was summoned by a French judge to testify on torture cases after multiple complaints by torture victims, such as Zakaria Moumni, against him and his organisation. His name has been often cited in connection to secret detention centres in Morocco such as the Temara interrogation centre and the Ain Aouda secret prison.
In Morocco lawsuits against the DST and Hammouchi in connection to the death of detainees under torture have been rejected for lack of evidence.
In April 2011, Moroccan journalist Rachid Niny was imprisoned after he published sensitive details about Abdellatif Hammouchi. In 2011, Hammouchi received an Alaouite Wissam decoration from Mohammed VI in recognition of his efforts for maintaining security.
On 23 August 2014, the official press agency of Morocco, Maghreb Arabe Presse, announced that Hammouchi was awarded a decoration in Spain. This was reportedly done in response to his prosecution in France for torture, which angered Mohammed VI. It was later revealed that the decoration he received was only given to him by the Spanish administration of police and not the Ministry of the Interior and was thus inadequate with his stature as a director of a foreign intelligence agency.
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Wikipedia