Fourth person detained as Tangier election investigation widens

A fourth person has been detained in the investigation into the election-day incidents at Al-Quds school in Tangier, widening a case that began with the discovery of ballot papers around a polling centre and quickly became one of the most closely watched disputes of Wednesday’s vote.

The latest suspect was detained on Thursday night and joined three others already held in police custody.

The outlet said police also seized his vehicle on suspicion that it may have been used to transport election papers. The investigation remains under the supervision of prosecutors, and no final findings have been announced.

The case began on election day at Al-Quds school in Tangier’s Kasabarata neighbourhood. The public prosecutor at the Tangier Court of First Instance confirmed that a man had been stopped in the school courtyard, where a polling station was located, carrying a bag containing ballot papers. Prosecutors ordered his detention while investigators worked to establish what the papers were and how they came to be there.

Separately, the prosecutor general at the Tangier Court of Appeal opened an investigation into a widely circulated video showing a transparent box containing white envelopes.

The stated purpose of that inquiry was to establish what the footage showed and determine whether any legal consequences followed. Public statements from prosecutors have not established that the box shown in the video and the ballot papers found with the detained man were part of the same act.

Images and videos published by Moroccan media appeared to show some papers marked for PAM, but prosecutors have not publicly confirmed their authenticity, whether they were valid ballots or how they were intended to be used. Those distinctions remain central to the investigation.

PAM has denied involvement. Abdellatif Ghalbzouri, the party’s candidate in Tangier-Assilah, said the man initially detained had no connection to PAM and rejected claims that he was one of the party’s polling representatives.

Ghalbzouri also said his own visit to Tangier police headquarters was to file a complaint over what he described as defamatory accusations against the party, not because investigators had summoned him for questioning.

The widening investigation therefore still leaves the central questions unanswered: where the papers came from, who controlled them, whether they were intended to interfere with voting, and whether anyone beyond the people detained was involved.

For now, neither prosecutors nor police have publicly established electoral fraud or attributed the incident to PAM, its candidate or another party.

The four detentions mark an expansion of the investigation, not a conclusion about responsibility.