Morocco has put in place, for more than a decade, many legal and institutional tools against money laundering and the financing of terrorism, in harmony with the achievements of the international community in this field, said Thursday in Oujda, the Minister of Justice, Mohamed Benabdelkader.

The Kingdom has strengthened its national legal system through the adoption in 2007 of Law 43.05 on the fight against money laundering, which has been revised with a view to adapting it to the successive recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), stressed the Minister during a communication meeting organized by the Ministry of Justice, in partnership with the Oujda Bar Association, around the theme "The role of the lawyer in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism".

The Ministry of Justice has also introduced new amendments which are the subject of a bill currently submitted to the Committee on Justice, Legislation and Human Rights in the House of Representatives for adoption, said Mohamed Benabdelkader, noting that this bill is likely to strengthen preventive and repressive measures against such crimes and fill the gaps identified in the mutual evaluation report.

The aim is to comply with the recommendations and standards of the FATF, in particular with regard to legal rules related to the legal and judicial professions, the Minister added, recalling the creation in 2009 of the Financial Information Processing Unit and the strengthening of research and investigation capacities at central and regional level. These efforts have made it possible to detect many offences, since in the years 2019 and 2020 alone a total of 390 cases were registered in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, he said. This meeting, the fourth of its kind after meetings held around the same theme with the Bar Associations of Rabat, Safi and Meknes, aims to raise awareness of the importance of the full and responsible adherence of all Moroccan bar associations to the anti-money laundering and financing system of the terrorism. The aim is to respond favourably to the remarks of the FATF experts for the MENA region, in particular with regard to the integration of non-financial professions in the fight against such crimes, including the legal and judicial professions. For his part, the President of the Oujda Bar, El Houcine Ziani, welcomed the initiative of organizing this series of communication meetings capable of strengthening collaboration between the Ministry of Justice and the Bar Associations in the service of justice and the interests of the nation. Lawyers, through their mission and principles, can only support all efforts to combat money laundering, one of the forms of corruption that weaken societies, given the transnational nature of this phenomenon and its links with organized crime, he said. This meeting was marked by the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Justice and the Oujda Bar Association, on the training of trainers for the management of lawyers' digital platforms, as part of the digital transformation of the judicial system.