Spells, orgies and cocaine: Morocco shocked by case of psychiatrist accused of drugging and raping his patients

Magic spells, orgies, cocaine and heroin use, human trafficking... The trial of a psychiatrist in the city of Fez who was accused of drugging and raping 10 women who had come to his office for treatment has shocked Moroccan society. The trial, held in a court in the religious capital of the country, concluded on Monday night with a 20-year prison sentence for the doctor, after the victims presented a detailed account of the horrors they endured.

It began as a story of jealousy. The psychiatrist S.I. Had declined to accompany his wife on a trip to France that they had arranged the previous year. Suspecting a possible infidelity, the wife examined her husband’s cell phone upon her return. She discovered videos of group sex recorded in their home, including acts of “deviant behavior,” according to the court testimony cited by the weekly magazine Tel Quel, alluding to homosexual relationships.

The wife’s complaint of adultery filed with the Fez police led to an investigation that has uncovered one of the largest cases of sexual abuse committed by a doctor in the North African country. S.I. Has been in prison since June 2025. Six other people have been arrested for their involvement in the sexual abuse.

Morocco is a conservative country in terms of customs. The Penal Code prescribes up to one year in prison for the crime of fornication: having sexual relations outside of marriage. The penalty increases to two years in cases of adultery, if a complaint is filed by the legal spouse, and to three years for homosexual relations.

In his testimony before the court, the psychiatrist admitted that the videos were his. One of the recordings showed him with several men and women, all naked, while being caressed in the living room of his home in Fez. The images depicted the use of plastic sex toys. The photographer who took them, who has been sentenced to six years in prison, testified that he also recorded the sexual encounters he himself had with the addiction specialist.

However, Dr. S. I. Denied having coerced his patients and claimed that all participants in the group sex acts had given their free consent. He alleged that his pregnant wife had reported him to the police as revenge after he suspected he might not be the father and demanded a paternity test.

One of the patients who accused him refuted the doctor’s arguments in court. Before the judges, she said she had been a victim of sexual exploitation and subjected to rituals through a kind of spell in which she had to play the zither, which the psychiatrist presented as therapy. “I had a deep feeling of fear,” she recounted at the trial, “and he kept repeating to me: ‘You’re safe here, dear.’”

Other patients had testified to police that they had been sexually abused by the doctor in his office, at his home, in his car, or at a riad in the historic medina. At this traditional hotel, “libertine evenings” of group sex were organized with Gnawa music (a fusion of African and Arabic rhythms). The owner of the riad and one of his employees have been sentenced to one year in prison, as has a nurse who collaborated with the psychiatrist. A cousin of the doctor, responsible for supplying the drugs, received a five-year prison sentence. All those convicted must pay tens of thousands of euros in compensation to the victims.

In a therapy he himself had undergone, Dr. S. I. Prescribed cocaine, heroin, and other hallucinogens to the women he treated in his practice until they became addicted. One of them testified that she had to sell her apartment to pay for her drug use.

Fear of reporting

Only four of the 10 patients presented as victims of the psychiatrist attended the trial, and one of them had to be summoned by the prosecution after initially refusing to appear. In Morocco, barely 3% of women who report having been victims of sexual assault file a formal complaint with the courts or security forces, according to a study by the High Commissioner for Planning, the Moroccan statistical institute. They are afraid to report. If the facts are not clearly proven, they risk being prosecuted for fornication.

Sentences for rape handed down by Moroccan judges are often lower than the maximum penalties stipulated by law. In 2023, the case of a young girl who was raped by three men for months, starting at age 11, shocked the nation. The child was threatened with death if she reported the abuse, but her pregnancy ultimately led to the sexual assault being exposed.

In the initial trial, the rapists received a sentence of only two years in prison, as the judges applied mitigating factors such as “poverty” and “lack of education.” Following a public outcry, a higher court sentenced the perpetrators to between 10 and 20 years in prison.

Chemical submission

Fourteen percent of Moroccan women reported having suffered sexual abuse in a social survey published in 2019. Ten years earlier, only 9% had dared to speak out. A rape allegation filed in 2024 by a young French lawyer against three men from the most powerful economic class appeared to break the code of silence.

The three businessmen were arrested and jailed on charges of rape, kidnapping, assault and drug use in an alleged case of chemical submission during a nighttime party held at a luxury villa in Casablanca where alcohol and cocaine were flowing.

The young lawyer said she woke up disoriented hours later, with no memory of what had happened. Her pants were askew, her underwear was torn, and she had pain in her genital area.

The homeowner and party organizer, considered the prime suspect by police, denied the accusations and claimed that the sexual encounter with the young woman was consensual. He also alleged that everyone had consumed alcohol and cocaine.

In an unexpected turn of events, the French lawyer withdrew the charges she had filed in March 2025. The case against the son of the owner of one of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies, the son of the head of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises, and a third young businessman was dismissed.

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