I want to pay tribute to my aunt Colette, my mother’s beloved sister, for choosing to share this testimony. Tati Colette, as my brother Karim and I used to call her, has always remained close to my parents and to me, in moments of happiness as well as in times of hardship.
She was by Mom’s side and with her at Dad’s bedside when he was hospitalized in Bordeaux or in Rabat. She is still at our side, facing this injustice today.
“We left Morocco at the end of 1977 after eighteen years spent in that beautiful country. At that time, Soufiane Elkabous was still just a child, far from what he would later become.
Later, as an adolescent in total academic failure, he rejected the education that my brother-in-law, M’Jid, and my sister, Pierrette, tried to give him.
When we saw him again in Morocco fifteen years later, he had become an adult, physically imposing, already temperamental, unmanageable, authoritarian, and aggressive. And in the many times we crossed paths with him afterward, he only confirmed this image.
After serving in the gendarmerie, from which he was eventually dismissed for questionable behavior, he had already become the owner of several apartments, luxury cars, and had ready cash at his disposal. On a gendarme’s salary!
Away from the M’Jid family, he even bragged about regularly paying colleagues to replace him at his gendarme post during his shift, ordering them to ‘turn their backs’ when suspicious shipments were announced to him.
After that, his assets multiplied very quickly: La Notte, a farm, a beauty salon, studios rented out by the half-day, and, of course, always more cash. Who can accumulate so many assets without really working? We never got an answer.
Little by little, his ties with the M’Jid family weakened. Contacts became rarer. He lived his shady life away from us. The M’Jid family, asking themselves questions, were afraid to understand. M’Jid himself, out of dismay, had even asked him to be less present and not to flaunt his luxury cars in front of the family home.
One day, my sister told him someone had bothered her during her morning walk, and he went out of the house and beat up the first poor man he came across in the street, even though he knew he was not the culprit! This innocent man was severely injured. One hundred and fifty kilos against fifty… such ‘bravery’!
He had become, and he has remained, brutal, closed to dialogue, rejecting reasonable discussion and never tolerating dissent. Surrounded by cowardly, self-interested sycophants, on their knees and at his service, he frightens his employees, whom he treats like slaves.
After M’Jid’s death, my sister came to our home in France more often. During her stays with us, we clearly observed that she would go two or three weeks without any contact with him. Their relationship was deeply strained. We were relieved, because he was hurting my sister and had never deserved the affection that the whole M’Jid family had given him.
Ungrateful, he knew only how to impose himself through uncontrolled violence.
After the death of my dear brother-in-law and sister, the parents of my niece Asma, he decided, through clearly fraudulent maneuvers, to rob her of everything. He moved into the family home, and he emptied my sister’s bank account.
Asma cannot even safely travel to Morocco to recover her inheritance, as she is directly threatened by Elkabous and his mafia network, which he pays to execute his orders outside of the law.
I myself underwent a humiliating and threatening check at Casablanca airport by one of his men, who clearly told me he wanted to prevent me from leaving after my brother-in-law’s funeral.
May all those who knew and loved her parents give their support to Asma. She cannot fight this battle alone. She needs each and every one of you. Thank you.
It comes from the heart.”
— Colette
It should no longer be necessary to bring further testimony about the criminal Elkabous after all I and others have already revealed. His actions speak for themselves, so long as one does not decide to ignore them. Yet, it seemed important to me to make an exception here and share the perspective of a family member who knew him from the beginning with us all the way to what he has become today, a blight on society. Asma