August 28, 2015•Update: August 30, 2015
PARIS
Two French journalists are being investigated on suspicion of trying to blackmail the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI, according to a Paris prosecutor's office.
Eric Laurent and Catherine Graciet were arrested Thursday and are accused of wanting €3 million ($3.4 million) in exchange for burying a book the pair is writing about the king.
The book -- "containing damaging revelations about the King" -- remains unpublished, Eric Dupond-Moretti, a lawyer for Mohammed VI, told French TV Itele on Friday.
Dupond-Moretti said: "The Moroccan leadership filed a lawsuit in Paris and the French authorities have opened a preliminary investigation which led to the arrests."
"It's the first time I've ever seen someone, who says they're a journalist, openly conduct bribery against the state - it's outrageous," Dupond-Moretti told French radio station RTL.
Graciet's lawyer, Eric Moulet, told Le Monde newspaper that she "don't have access to the case files and so have only a few elements to go on but it looks like a put-up job".
Laurent and Graciet have both written a number of other books, and co-wrote another publication about King Mohammed VI in 2012 called Le Roi predateur [The Predator King].
The journalists, who remain in custody at the BRDP Anti-Crime Unit in Paris, could face up to seven years in jail and a €100,000 fine for extortion and up to five years in jail and a €75,000 fine for blackmailing.
