Years ago, on the advice of a notary, my parents had established a civil real estate company, ASKA, the first two letters of Asma and Karim, my deceased brother’s name, and transferred the house to the corporation. My mother held 95 percent of the shares, my father 5 percent. It was designed to ensure my mother would inherit everything after my father’s passing, and that I would inherit it from her in turn.

Before her death, as part of organizing the family’s affairs, Mom sold two parcels of land my father had owned in the Rabat area, used part of the proceeds to pay off the remaining debt on the house, and secured a clear title from the bank. She called me proudly the day she received it and told me she had placed it in her safe for me, just in case. A thousand times, she spoke about the will she had written, making sure the house and all its contents would pass to me, and that I would have access to her bank accounts. A thousand times, I pushed back. I didn’t want to talk about the “after.”

I was stunned when both Elkabous and his so-called attorney insisted I dissolve ASKA before I had even returned to the United States to renew my Moroccan ID card. The same two individuals who had explained to me that I couldn’t access any of my inherited property without the ID card were now trying to convince me to dismantle a company my father had created without needing the same identification. That made no sense. I was certain my father had received sound legal advice when he established ASKA. I refused.

Shortly after, I returned to the U.S. and began the process of renewing my ID card. I remember the staff of the Moroccan consulate in New York being so supportive and kind. They had heard about my mother’s killing. The consul himself stepped out of his office to comfort me and hug my daughters.

I did not return to Casablanca immediately. The pain of losing my mom so suddenly and violently, the way she died, her missed trip (we were preparing to welcome her just days later), the paltry sentence her killer received, the thought of going to the house we had owned since 1972 without either of my parents there. It was all unbearable. Then COVID hit. Then came family medical issues in the U.S. And some time passed.

During that time, Soufiane Elkabous stayed in touch. He repeated his earlier apology a couple of times and said it would never happen again. He told me he understood my devastation after the loss of my mother and assured me he was looking after the house. He said someone came to clean it on a semi-regular basis, but that he was always there when they did. He asked for my permission to stop by from time to time, “just to reflect,” he said. I agreed, on the express condition that he not change anything in the house. He agreed.

He acknowledged that he knew and understood the house was always going to be mine and often repeated that everything would be ready for the transfer when I returned. He said there was nothing to worry about despite the delays. We also agreed that I would reimburse him for any cleaning expenses he had covered, after I accessed the funds in the bank accounts.

He offered to arrange a meeting with the Adouls, whom he said he knew, even though my mother had told me clearly her will was with her notary. Elkabous insisted the Adouls route would be faster and more efficient, and said I should return to Morocco alone, “just the first time,” “just until the title was transferred.” After that, he said, the rest of my family could join. I didn’t know it then, but he wanted me to be and to feel alone in Morocco for what he had planned.

Eventually, once COVID restrictions lifted and health concerns were addressed in the U.S., I called the notary directly. She confirmed that she still had the will and that it was secure in her possession, but stated she was about to leave on an extended trip for a few months. She asked me to delay my trip to Morocco until her return and assured me the additional wait would have no impact. We would handle all inheritance matters at once when she got back. This was November 2023.

I informed Elkabous that I was planning to return to Morocco in the spring to visit my parents’ and brother’s graves, complete the succession, and take possession of the house. As he had before, he assured me he would organize everything: the meetings, the title transfer, the reading of the will.

I would sleep at my cousin’s place the first night, since I couldn’t sleep alone in my parents’ empty home. They were figuring it out. My daughters were not with me. A friend was going to join me later and stay at the house with me.

I had no idea how far from reality those reassurances would turn out to be.

On August 6, 2018, my mother was struck and killed by a reckless, criminal driver while on her morning walk. I flew to Casablanca the same day and arrived the next morning, just hours before her funeral.

It was the first time I would speak to Soufiane Elkabous in over four years. Indeed, after my father had passed away, he had revealed his true nature. Mere hours after the funeral, he had become disrespectful toward me for the first time, had raised his voice, and had to be restrained by members of my family. The very next day, he and his family began posting vile attacks about me and my daughters, who were teenagers at the time, on social media.

After I returned to the USA, he had filed a false complaint that had led to my father’s Facebook account being taken down, even though he knew perfectly well that all the posts in it came from my father. That account, my father and I had built together over the years. In Casablanca, we would often sit in the living room while he shared his thoughts on society, a person, or an occasion to honor Morocco, and I would post them on his behalf. Even from a distance, he would call me so I could post his words. I did it gladly. It was our bond, our shared project, despite the distance.

That alone was enough for this bitter, ungrateful snake to want the account gone. Elkabous was not the center of it, and it highlighted the love and closeness my father and I shared. From that moment on, I never spoke to him again.

In a cold and calculated display of malice, having successfully fooled Facebook into shutting down my father’s account, he was simultaneously promoting his own, day and night, often invoking my father’s name as if he were his own. My mother understood my disgust toward him and his schemes, and his behavior hurt her, but she still hoped to repair things between us before she died. She never succeeded. There was too much to fix.

At the same time, Mom, ever careful, had spent the years since my father’s passing putting all her affairs in order, “just in case,” as she would say. If anything happened to her, she wanted everything to be ready so I could keep spending time in Morocco. She had even delayed her trip to visit us so she could finish renovating the house. She wanted it to be “perfect,” even refreshing the paint and updating the major appliances.

We spoke every day. About everything. I miss those conversations so much. It still hurts today, and even more when I think she must be looking down on what is happening.

She kept me updated on the house renovation, her preparations for her upcoming trip to visit us, and everything else happening in Morocco and around the world. She also insisted on keeping me informed about what she called the “after,” including the status of her bank accounts, the will, the house title, and more. 

During her last visit to the USA, she had handwritten the code to her personal safe in her bedroom on a piece of paper for me to keep. This was the safe containing all the inheritance documents, a copy of the clear title, and other items and valuables she wanted me to have. I still have her handwritten note with the code. She wanted me to be prepared and protected.

After the funeral, I returned to the house and went to her room to feel closer to her. My mother’s perfume still lingered in the air. Her shoes were by her bed. A change of clothes was laid out. She had just gone out for a morning walk, but never came back. My legs gave out, and my daughter helped me out of the room. 

Before I left the room, I stopped by her safe, hoping to find a note or some message from my mother still speaking to me. To my shock, the safe stood wide open. Empty. No note. No copy of the will. No copy of the house title. No valuables. Not a thing. Everything had been emptied out. 

I asked Soufiane Elkabous where the contents of the safe and the documents my mother had left for me were. He replied, without shame, that he and the foundation’s “attorney” had “secured them for me” at the lawyer’s office, and that he would give them to me in due time.

They had emptied Mom’s safe on the very day of her death to block my access to it!

I had hoped things would be better between us this time, but discovered then and there that nothing had changed, except perhaps for the worse.

“In due time”? Somehow, he was now deciding what “due time” meant for the contents of my mother’s safe. He had no right whatsoever to that safe. No authorization. It was in my mother’s bedroom. It was my mother’s private safe. By what right had he even accessed it?

She was alive just the day before. She had given me the code directly during her visit so that I could access it myself when the time came.

Yet, in the few hours between my mother’s passing and her rushed funeral, Soufiane Elkabous had already emptied my mother’s safe of all its contents. On the very day she was killed. How could anyone behave that way? Think that way? Even before the funeral. 

I left the room, locked it, and took the key with me. I wanted it preserved exactly as my mother had left it that fateful morning she was taken from me. I told Elkabous that no one was to disturb her room. He agreed to ensure nothing was touched. I could not go back to the room during that trip, but I planned to do so upon my return. 

The next day, when I again asked about the contents and documents from the safe, he and the foundation’s “attorney,” very much acting as his personal attorney, told me I first needed to return to New York and renew my Moroccan national ID card before I could take possession of the house, access my mother’s accounts, and the rest of the inheritance. They added that they would assist with everything, including the title transfer, bank accounts, and the will.

They were stalling. I didn’t yet know why. But I would soon.

Because of the length of this post, we had to split it into three parts. The remaining parts will be posted in the next day or two.

My father built his foundation to carry forward a mission of service, integrity, and Moroccan pride, not to honor his own legacy. It was rooted in values, not in vanity. Those he chose to lead it with him were hand-picked for their character, competence, and shared commitment to the mission, not for their allegiance to him.

After he passed, everything changed.

Soufiane Elkabous had already laid the groundwork. Before my father died, he had convinced him to appoint one of his partners as the foundation’s attorney. The same man who would later assure me that all of my inheritance papers were safe and secure with him, that I should return to the United States to complete paperwork there before taking ownership of my parents’ house and other possessions in Casablanca, and that he would ensure the transfer happened without issues. I never saw those documents again.

What happened next was not a transition. It was a hostile takeover.

Soufiane Elkabous systematically removed every person my father had personally selected to carry on his work. The competent and the benevolent. The physicians, the architects, the professionals, and the dreamers. People who had their own careers but still invested time daily alongside my father in service to the country. Not one remains.

In their place: the self-interested, the opportunists, his family members, and sycophants. All in his image. People who owe their positions to their loyalty to Elkabous and to him alone, not to merit, and not to the mission.

The foundation no longer honors my father’s work. Instead, it serves as a platform to promote Soufiane Elkabous himself. His face, his image, his narrative. Social media is full of photos and posts positioning him as the heir to my father’s legacy. But in truth, he has betrayed everything that my father stood for.

My father used his life’s work and image to promote the foundation. Now, this impostor is using the foundation to promote himself. What was once built to serve others has become a vehicle for self-promotion.

He has utilized the foundation to secure funding from private companies and government organizations, all under the guise that the same integrity and impact remained. And while some level of continuity and service may still exist, it is no longer at the core. The priorities have shifted. The image has changed. The individual now at the center of it all hijacked the foundation to construct and project an artificially enhanced image of himself.

Properly run foundations benefit society. They should not be allowed to abuse its trust. That requires independent and transparent oversight of those in charge, the integrity of the process, and the efficiency with which funds are used. At a minimum, foundations should be required to publish the percentage of funds received that are ultimately used for public benefit versus the portion spent on overhead, including salaries, perks, cars, and internal operations. Without such metrics, “non-profit” becomes little more than a label, an excuse rather than a standard. I know my father’s foundation would have passed that kind of scrutiny easily while he led it. Would it even survive it today?

The impostor has even gone so far as to rename himself “Soufiane Elkabous MJid” on the foundation’s official website, placing his own image directly beneath my father’s. M’Jid is not his name. It never was. There is no blood connection. There is no legal basis. It is a lie. Fiction presented as fact, for personal gain and public deception.

Do donors know that “Soufiane Elkabous M’Jid” is a fake name? And if they do, have they asked themselves what else might be fake? Is it possible they were presented with an image of continuity and public service that no longer reflects reality? Is it possible that donors were misled? Do donors know if they have been funding lifestyle, self-promotion, vanity, and nepotism? Do they truly believe they are still funding a righteous cause, not realizing how far that cause may have drifted from its original purpose? 

Dad created and led the foundation for over fourteen years, using it to improve and enrich the lives of others. Elkabous, by contrast, has done the opposite. He has used the foundation to undeservingly elevate his status, enrich himself, and personally benefit from a name and reputation he stole.

I will return to the theft of my inheritance, committed by the crook and his accomplices, and the choice to remain silent by others. However, first, the truth about what happened to the foundation my father cared about so much that he gave it his name, my name, needed to be told.

This post was written for me years ago, in 2014, after the passing of my father, Mr. Mjid, but before the current scandal came to light. I share it now because nothing has changed, except the scale of the betrayal.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” E. Burke

Asma had one brother, who passed away too soon, and her two parents. Not two brothers. Not one and a half. Just one.

And now her dad had passed away as well.

Years ago, Asma had asked her Dad and her Mom to adopt a helpless kid from a family who was willing to part with him. She had gone to her parents to adopt dogs, cats, and other pets many times before, and they never said no to her. And it was fun to bring more into the family. And the pets were always grateful. So, “how could one ignore a little boy in need”, she thought? It would be good…

But it did not turn out as well. As the boy grew, he barked louder, loved less, deceived more, and was loyal only to image and money. Such behavior was foreign to her and to her family. It was not something they could relate to. He even tried, more than once, to supplant her in her own family, but the father never allowed it. It would never happen. The father loved his daughter.

But now the father was gone, and the boy had forgotten the very hand that fed him—literally. He was now working to subvert her father’s values, usurp her legacy, and hijack her name. He was pretending to be her father, even as he tried to replace her.

The thing about parents is that one can’t change them for someone else’s, even if one tries to forget his own, the mother who got rid of him, or the father he never knew. Repeating that someone else is your father does not make it so. Never did. Never will. And certainly, you can’t steal one to replace yours. It does not work that way. Blood is thicker than water. And when you look at the adults that the daughter and the impostor have become today, it shows: blood matters.

Somehow, her father knew it.

And when the father spent over three weeks in Intensive Care before he passed, the fake son came to visit him once, for a few minutes. He never spoke to him, never comforted him, not before that visit, not after. Not once.

Asma, her mother, and her aunt visited her father, Mr. M’Jid, every day, and stayed the whole day. The aunt’s husband also visited. A few friends traveled hundreds of kilometers for a few minutes with her father. But the self-proclaimed “brother”? No, he didn’t have time. And, there were no cameras at the hospital.

And the father? Well, he didn’t ask about the degenerate once. Not once. Oh, the father spoke to his daughter, his wife, his sister-in-law, asked about his granddaughters, son-in-law, nieces, news, events, and even work. He spoke to doctors, joked with nurses, and talked with his daughter, who stayed with him from the first hour to the last, hour after hour, day after day. But he never asked for the would-be son. The father knew.

She stayed by her father’s side until the very end, through his final night, sitting on a chair beside him, his hand in hers, until his last breath. The fake son? He stayed home, in his bed.

Asma was the one whom His Majesty, King Mohamed VI, promptly called to offer his condolences and support after her dad passed away. She was the one who presented His Majesty with her father’s last wishes, wishes that His Majesty the King kindly granted. She was the one who organized to have the remains of her late brother transferred next to her father’s and who was there during the transfer. She was the one who picked the graves for her dad and for her brother, who bought the tombstones and had them set up. The would-be brother? He didn’t have time.

Now, her dad and her brother were gone, and the one who previously did not have time suddenly had time.

Pretending to be the son he never was, he used her dad’s name to partner with crooks and backstabbers who had hurt her father so much that he had talked to her about them from his deathbed.

The impostor used fake idealism and nationalism as tools to eliminate the real daughter and attack the granddaughters so that he could claim a legacy that he and his bunch didn’t deserve and would never embody.

Her father was an example of moderation and tolerance. Faithful to his own country and faith until his last breath, he had married outside of it 60 years before. Her father never saw a man for his color or belief but for his goodness and potential, values he instilled in his daughter and deceased son.

Now, the one who knew better than to challenge her dad’s values while her dad was alive resorted to opportunistic and calculated idealisms, tried to cast himself as a nationalist while, at the same time, criticizing her, the legitimate daughter, for living abroad.

Nationalism? How can one ship their wife across borders to give birth three times, so the kids have different citizenship, and still stake nationalistic claims? Morocco has excellent maternity wards, with modern equipment and qualified medical professionals. It was the height of hypocrisy.

Very unlike her, very unlike her dad, and very unlike her real brother.

No brother to her. No son to her dad. No uncle to her daughters. And, definitely, no custodian of her father’s name or values. Bringing him into her family had indeed been a grave mistake.

She should have gotten another dog.

My name is Asma M’Jid, daughter of the late Mr. Mohamed M’Jid. For years, I have been fighting against a fraud that strikes at the heart of my family’s legacy. I gave space for the truth to come out, for things to be resolved privately, with dignity. But that path has closed. To stay quiet now would betray everything I believe in and everything my father stood for.

My father, a committed figure in Morocco’s fight for independence, was imprisoned multiple times by French authorities during the protectorate era, but never strayed from his vision of a proud, free, and independent Morocco, founded on honor, truth, and justice.

He considered himself blessed and was proud to have had the opportunity to promote the values of his country under the reign of His Majesty King Mohammed V, under the reign of His Majesty King Hassan II, and under the reign His Majesty King Mohammed VI.

My father served in Parliament, led the Royal Moroccan Tennis Federation as president for over forty years, tirelessly advocated for women’s rights, established the MJID Foundation to support the most vulnerable, and offered his support wherever he believed he could contribute to the future of the country he loved more than anything. “A former young man taking care of future old people,” he used to say.

Papa passed away in March 2014, and my mother, Pierette M’Jid, his wife of sixty years, joined him in August 2018, struck and killed during her morning walk by a reckless and criminal driver. After their passing, a series of betrayals and forgeries led to what is today the outright theft of their legacy and of my rightful inheritance as their daughter.

At the center of this inheritance fraud is Soufiane Elkabous. As a child, he lived in an unstable situation. His mother worked on an estate my parents owned, and I was the one who had asked them to take him in. My family gave him a home and raised him. 

After my mother’s death, he emptied the safe in her house, where she had placed the inheritance documents specifically for me to protect. He emptied her bank accounts. He moved into the home she had left to me and took it over. Then he produced false documents in a calculated attempt to justify the unjustifiable.

I tried to resolve the situation privately, but without success. Like many fraudsters, he believes he can lie, forge, and steal without consequence. He sees himself as untouchable, above justice, beyond shame. But criminal behavior cannot be protected by silence.

Before he left us, my father, who was worried about how certain behaviors toward me might change after he was gone, left me the names of specific people to contact if needed. These were individuals he trusted, had worked with, and who had committed to him they would look after me if necessary. They held, and continue to hold, positions of prominence and high responsibility. We’ll come back to this. 

After numerous attempts at an amicable resolution failed, I contacted three of them. I had their personal numbers. All three condemned Soufiane Elkabous’s actions as clearly illegal, all recognized I was the victim of a fraud, and all committed to taking action to redress it. One of them even told me he was aware of other complaints. All three assured me they would see that justice was done. In the end, none of them helped. Which brings us here.

Louis Brandeis, former Justice of the United States Supreme Court, once said: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” I believe this to be true.

Today, I am starting this blog in the hope that those who still believe in the Morocco to which my father devoted his life, those who believe in justice, whether they are civil servants, journalists, diplomats, professionals, retirees, or activists, will take action and stand with me to right this injustice.

That is why I am writing publicly today. That is why more posts will follow, each week, with more information, more specifics. Come back to read them. The facts will shock you. 

My parents would have wanted me to.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for bearing witness. Thank you for sharing.