Inquiries continue into crushing of fish wholesaler Mouhcine Fikri in truck, which trigged some of the most serious protests in country since Arab spring

Police in Morocco are questioning five people about whether they heard an officer give an order to start a rubbish compressor with a man inside, resulting in his death and prompting angry protests across the country.

Suspicion of wrongdoing by police first emerged after local news reports quoted a witness saying he heard one of the officers involved ask for the crusher to be activated to scare away a group of men trying to retrieve confiscated fish.

The controversy over the circumstances of the death of Mouhcine Fikri, 31, has been further exacerbated by several hashtags on social media using the words “Grind him!” and “Grind the people”, as well as by footage of his death filmed on a phone.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters in Rabat. Photograph: Abdelhak Senna/EPA

According to the Moroccan news website Le360.ma and the magazine TelQuel, police in the northern port town of Hoceima, in the Berber Rif region, confiscated and destroyed swordfish belonging to Fikri because of a ban on catching swordfish at this time of year.

Horrific video shows the fish wholesaler and two companions on the back of the refuse truck trying to rescue the valuable fish. As the crusher mechanism unexpectedly starts, his two friends jump free while Fikri, screaming in fear, is caught by the machinery and killed.

The incident, which occurred on Friday night, has triggered some of the most serious protests in Morocco since the Arab spring in 2011 which prompted King Mohammed VI to vow to introduce a new constitution and more democracy.

Graphic photographs of the aftermath of the incident show Fikri’s head and an arm protruding from the truck’s rubbish compactor.



The interior ministry said in a statement on Sunday that the king asked the interior minister, Mohammed Hassad, to visit Fikri’s family and ensure a “meticulous” investigation. The prime minister, Abdelilah Benkirane, released a statement on Saturday offering his condolences.

Fikri’s funeral on Sunday drew large crowds, with the procession led by a dozen drivers in their cars, including taxis, and marchers waving Berber flags. This inspired smaller protests from Fez to Casablanca and the capital, Rabat.



The incident has prompted comparisons with the death of Mohammed al-Bouazizi, the Tunisian vegetable seller whose self-immolation after being slapped by a policewoman triggered the Arab spring in January 2011.

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The incident has also touched a raw nerve in Morocco over official misconduct, with many at his funeral and elsewhere making reference to “hogra”, a word used to describe arbitrary abuses by the authorities, including violence and bribe taking.

As the general directorate for national security released a statement denying its officers were involved in the death, more details began to emerge on Monday.

According to accounts from witnesses and local media around Hoceima, Fikri was stopped on Friday with two companions transporting 500kg of swordfish. Police called a rubbish contractor at about 10pm to bring a compactor truck to destroy the fish.

According to one version circulated on social media but strongly denied by police, one of the officers had demanded a bribe and the fish was destroyed when Fikri refused.



One witness described what he saw to Morocco’s Media24 on condition of anonymity. “There were three people: the fish merchant and two others,” he said. “They got out of their car and climbed in the back of the garbage lorry to stop the destruction of their merchandise.

“The [crusher] mechanism was halted [at that time] but then suddenly it started operating. The two others quickly jumped down from the lorry, but Mouhcine was trapped because he was straddling the back and couldn’t get himself out of it in time.

“It’s impossible for me to say who started it or if the compactor started automatically. But I didn’t hear anyone give the order. The dustman was in the cab at the time. By the following day lots of fantastic versions of what happened began circulating.”

His account was lent support by reports that none of the five being questioned about the incident, including one of Fikri’s two companions, had heard the alleged order, although the question remains about who started the crusher.

Police have said Fikri failed to stopped for officers and was intercepted with the contraband fish, at which point a “decision was taken to destroy it”, but they do not detail how the crusher started.

Whatever occurred, it has touched sensitivities in Morocco which had negotiated the Arab spring and its aftermath with far less disruption than many other countries in the region.

While the demonstrations were not suprising in the Rif region, where relations with central government have long been strained, their spread to other urban centres was less expected.

Hoceima has a history of tension, having been the centre of rebellions against Spanish colonial rule in the 1920s and late 1950s. And in 2011, five youths were killed during protests by the February 20th movement.

“People are really pissed off, and can’t keep being silent any more,” said Abdellah Lefnatsa, a union leader from a leftwing movement among the more than 1,000 people protesting in front of the parliament in Rabat.

He claimed that students, workers and activists had all died because of police violence in recent years.

Fellow protester Rachid Hilali, a technology project manager, said: “To me, what happened in Al Hoceima should not happen in 2016. This way of killing people by the police, our grandfathers are used to it, but we should not be used to this. We cannot accept this kind of treatment any more.”

Fikri’s death comes only weeks after parliamentary elections and amid popular disillusionment about the pace of political reforms introduced by the king since 2011 designed to guide the country from a centralised monarchy to a parliamentary democracy. Despite constitutional reform, executive power remains concentrated around the monarchy, not least in the realms of security, the military and religion.

The response of Islamic political parties is likely to be defining in whether, and how, the unrest develops. The banned but tolerated Al Adl Wal Ihssane movement, the largest Islamic political group in Morocco, has called on its members to support the demonstrations, but Benkirane’s more moderate Justice and Development party, which won most seats in the recent elections, has called on its supporters to boycott any marches.