Fuentes diplomáticas marroquíes sospechan de un caso de espionaje en Colombia

After the case of the robbery with chemical submission of which two officials of the Moroccan embassy in Colombia were victims was made public, sources in Rabat's political and diplomatic circles tell ATALAYAR that it could be an espionage operation. 

In mid-August, two employees of the Moroccan embassy in Bogota were involved in an episode that has yet to be clarified. The versions of the Bogotá police and the Moroccan Foreign Ministry explain that two embassy workers met with two women via the internet to have dinner and get to know each other. Shortly after dinner, the Moroccan officials, a counsellor and an accountant, began to feel dizzy. The two women accompanied them to the home of one of them, where the diplomatic mission workers collapsed. 

When they woke up, they were missing money, a mobile phone and a tablet.  Both workers were later hospitalised. The Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs suspended them at the end of last week and they are said to be back in Morocco. Although the first information provided by the Moroccan ambassador in Colombia, Farida Loudaya, ruled out the hypothesis of espionage, other Moroccan diplomatic sources assure ATALAYAR that "everything indicates that it was an espionage operation". 

The information was revealed by the Spanish journalist and ATALAYAR contributor, Pedro Canales, to whom political and diplomatic circles in Rabat reportedly confessed their suspicions. According to these sources, the electronic equipment taken from the Moroccan officials was for professional use. The same sources suggested to ATALAYAR that the change of government in Colombia, with a shift in favour of the Polisario Front, could have motivated this alleged espionage operation. "With the change of government in Colombia and the arrival for the first time in half a century of the pro-Polisario radical left, some action of this kind was to be expected". 

After officially taking office on 7 August, Petro Gustavo's first diplomatic action was to restore relations with the Polisario Front, ending an era of good relations with the Moroccan government. Ambassador Farida Loudaya's work in Bogotá considerably reinforced the former president's government's support for Morocco's autonomy plan for the Sahara.

Americas Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra