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The Wife, the Hunter, and the Sorceress: Inside Morocco's Parliamentary Assassination Plot · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Casablanca, Morocco, March twenty seventeen. Picture this late Tuesday night,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: one of those really exclusive walled neighborhoods. It's quiet, humid.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You can almost smell the jasmine mixed with wealth city air.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just the hum of security cameras, the usual sounds
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: of wealth and quiet, until it wasn't quiet anymore.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Parliamentarian Delatif Mirdas, a very big name, wealthy, pulls up
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to his villa. He's waiting for the garage door, probably
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: thinking about politics the next day.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: He definitely wasn't thinking about the dark sedan speeding up
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: behind him. He never saw it coming.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It was fast, efficient. A rear window slides down.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Three shots bang bang bank, just like that, two to
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: the head, one chest.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Professional used a hunting rifle, which is specific suggests a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: marksmen exactly.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: The cars going instantly just vanishes into the night, leaves
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: behind this a horrific scene.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Police forensics they're there in minutes, and the first thought
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: is obvious.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Professional job, an assassination, not a robbery. The weapon joy
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: sealed that in EXPERI and shooter, maybe a hired gun
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: or someone who really knows hunting rifles.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: And then right in the middle of this chaos comes
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the victim's wife, Wafa. She was already sort of known,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: married a famous singer before Meridis.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: She arrives with their three kids, sees the body and well,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: it's pure drama. Collapses screaming right there in front of everyone.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: The camera's rolling, very public grief.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So you've got this scene looks like a political hit
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: on the surface, but what we're diving into today shows
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: something much darker underneath. Murder, betrayal, greed, even dark magic.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a wild one.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Our mission today is to unpack how investigators had to
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: look past the obvious, past the political theories, past that
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: very loud display of grief, to uncover what was really
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: going on with parliamentarian Meridis's murder.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Well, the first instinct, naturally was political. Murdis was powerful, rich.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: There were apparently some let's say, reservations about how we
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: got that ridge so fast?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Right, so please start digging into enemies and politics or business.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: It's the logical first step.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Makes sense, But that trail, it just went cold fast.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: They had CCTV, but the car was common, the plate
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: was hidden. A security garden nearby saw it happen. Mirdas
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: arriving around ten pm. The black car window down shots
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: quick escape, but nothing concrete to go on.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Felt like a bed end until Wafa, the grieving widow,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: steps in and she completely flips the script. How so
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: she challenges that whole kind man few enemies image of
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: her husband. She tells the police, Myridas was planning to
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: take a second wife.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: A second wife in that world.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, caula younger woman. And get this, she's the daughter
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: of Merida's close friend and campaign manager.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, wow, that definitely shifts things away from politics and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: straight into well personal drama exactly.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: And Wafa doesn't just drop that bomb. She immediately points
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: the finger at who Colin's brother, Mustafa. He's twenty seven.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Wafa describes a huge, loud fight they had recently. Says
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Mustafa threatened Meridas right there the villa.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, motive starting to form. Why the threat?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: According to Wafa, it was about explicit photos. Photos of
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Myrdess and Cala had somehow leaked online, humiliated Cola, ruined
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: a reputation. Mustapha was apparently furious.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Right protecting his sister's honor.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Maybe that was the narrative Wafa gave and then the kicker.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: She mentions Mustapha drives a black car, same type scene
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: leaving the murder scene.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now the police have a suspect, a mode
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of revenge, a history, and a matching car description. It's
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: pretty tidy, Yeah I did.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: They even confirmed Miridis had filed in assault complaint against
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Mustapha before Mustapha did a little jail time, but Miridas
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: dropped the charges later, probably because of Kala and her father.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So history of violence clear, motive means opportunity, case closed,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: That's what they thought.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: But Mustapha, well, he had an answer.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: He didn't just confess.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Not at all. He admitted Yeah, he threatened. Merdas said
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: it was emotional in the heat of the moment. But
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: then he drops his alibi and it's solid.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, what was it?
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: He was miles away across Cossablanca with friends. Multiple people
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: saw him. There was camera footage totally confirmed. No way
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: he could have been at the villa at ten pm.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, so the alibi holds. What about the car,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the black car? Waka made such a big deal about that.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Fell apart two Mustafa proved it. Yes, he used to
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: own that model of car. Keywords used to he sold it,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: sold it four months before the murder, produced the contracts.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: The friend who bought it drove it straight to Europe.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: It wasn't even a Morocco when murders was killed.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: So Mustafa is completely cleared, alibi, no car.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Totally cleared, which leaves the police asking a very awkward question.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Why did Waffa lie? Why deliberately try to frame Mustafa?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly? She didn't just offer a theory, She constructed a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: whole scenario, pointing them directly at an innocent man. That's calculating.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: So the focus has to swing back around, doesn't it
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: right on to Wafa herself? What was she really up to?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Precisely, investigators started looking closer at her behavior, the loud
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: public grief versus her private actions, which were well. Two
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: things stood out almost immediately. First, pretty soon after the murder,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: she goes to the bank and with straws a big
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: chunk of cash sixty thousand Moroccan dirhams.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, maybe funeral expenses or maybe not? What else?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: This one's more telling. While the investigation is in full swaying,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: she goes to the director of taxes in real estate
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: why to check which properties of Merinesses were already legally
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: in her name, and then she asked how to get
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: the rest transferred to her.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: WHOA, Okay, while her husband's body is barely cold, she's
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: securing the assets.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: That's how it looked. Priority seemed financial. Made the whole
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: grief performance feel very suspect, like crocodile tears. Yeah, the
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: sources put it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: And what about her not being there? She and the
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: kids were staying at her parents' house just ten minutes away,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: supposedly by coincidence.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Investigators weren't buying coincidence anymore. They dug into that the
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: daughter the testimony was key. She told police Waffa made
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: her call her dad Meridis that night to do what
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: confirm his arrival time, and Wafa specifically asked him to
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: pick up some.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Food on the way home, delaying him pinpointing his arrival.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It certainly looked like she was timing his arrival, making
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: sure he'd be pulling up right when the killer was ready.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: This wasn't an accidental absence. It felt orchestrated.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So the investigators, these experienced detectives, they're seeing this pattern right.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Theatrical grief, the framing attempt, the financial moves, the timing, Yeah.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: They started suspecting she was deliberately trying to confuse him.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Her story kept changing too. One minute, it's Mustafa, the
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: next she's hinting maybe some foreign agency killed him. It
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: was just noise misdirection.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, So Wafa is now squarely in the spotlight. What's
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the next move for the police surveillance?
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, secretly watch her, listen in, see who she talks to,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: where she goes. Did pay off almost immediately. They noticed
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: she was constantly frequently communicating with one specific phone number,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: a number they didn't recognize.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Whose number was it?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: It belonged to a man named Chichim Mushtari. He was
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: listed as a political consultant, married three kids, no obvious
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: ties to Mirrodus politically speaking.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: A political consultant seems random.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: But Hitcham had another job, a side hustle. Maybe he
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: was a well known, very skilled professional hunter.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: A hunter.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even had a big YouTube channel showing off his
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: skills with rifles.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, hunting rifle, the murder weapon bingo.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Suddenly, Hitcham Mushtari looked very interesting.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Did they find a connection between him and Wafa?
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. They pulled the text between that number and
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Wafa's phone. It was in business. It was romantic explicitly,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: so they were having an affair.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: So the lover is a professional hunter who uses the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: exact type of weapon used in the murder.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: It clicks into place, doesn't it? Romotive, motive means, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: the very specific skill needed for that kind of shot.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Heachim becomes suspect number one.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Did they check his videos, his rifles?
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: They did, reviewed his honey videos confirmed he owned and
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: used precisely the type of hunting rifle used to kill Mirdas.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: So they move in.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: They move in, arrest Hitchem, search his place. And where
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: do they find the rifle? Me?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, not locked in a gun safe.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Hidden under his bed. He denied it was there first,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: but they found it.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And during the interrogation Wafa must have realized something was
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: wrong when he went silent exactly.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: She started calling his phone over and over, frantic. The
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: police saw this. They told Hitchum, don't answer, just let
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: her call.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Let the pressure build, smart psychological pressure.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Hours went by. Finally they let Hitchum answer, but they
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: told him stay calm, don't give anything away. She broke instantly,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: the relief of hearing his voice mixed with terror. Maybe
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: she just blurted it out, something like she was terrified
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: the police would find out what they had done.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: She confessed just like that over the phone.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Effectively, Yes, confirmed her involvement right there. That was enough.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: They arrested her immediately.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Oh so Wafa and her lover Hitchem conspired to kill Mirroredos.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But there's usually more to these things, isn't there?
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Oh? There was. The interrogations revealed another layer, a third
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: person involved, and this connection is well, it's bizarre.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Who was it?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Remember Wafa's confidante, the woman she supposedly went to for
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: spells to keep murder us loyal, Roquoya Shabone, known locally
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: as a sorceress, a fortune teller.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that detail. Strange, but maybe grief makes
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: people do strange things.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Turns out Roquoya the sorceress was Hitchim Ashtari's half sister.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: His sister, the fortune teller, introduced the lovers.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: She was the link. But it wasn't about love spells,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: not really. It was a setup, a financial scheme. Riquoya
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: and Hitchum apparently ran what kind of scheme? Hisham targeted wealthy,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: older women, vulnerable women. Roquoya would help make the introduction.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Futum would start a relationship, gain their trust, get access
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: to their assets, and then and then split the profits
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: with Ruquoya. Waffa was meant to be just another target.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: In their con But she wasn't just a target.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: No, this is the final twist. Waffa wasn't the manipulated victim.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Here she flipped the script on them. She became the mastermind.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: She was driving the murder plot, not just going along
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: She orchestrated it. She wanted Merodas dead for freedom, yes,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: but mainly for the money, total control over his estate.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: How did they piece that together?
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: It started with those photos, the explicit pictures of Meridas
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: and Caula. Waffa found them on his.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Phone, and instead of confronting him, she.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Saw an opportunity. She created a fake social media account
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: and leaked the photos herself.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Why to hurt Kala.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Not primarily, Her goal was strategic. She knew Kula's brother,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Mustafa was volatile. She leaked the photos specifically to provoke
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Mustafa into making those public threats against.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Mirdas, to create a scapegoat a prepackaged suspect.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: For the police exactly she handed them Mustafa on a
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: silver platter. It was brilliant in a chilling way.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And she designed the murder itself to fit that narrative.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Down to the details. She insisted Hitchim usable black car
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: like Mustafa's old one. She insisted he shoot from inside
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the car, making it look like Mustafa's angry, impulsive revenge
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: attack carried out by Hitcham, the expert marksman.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Wow, the level of planning is something else. Who drove
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the getaway car?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Hitcham needed a driver he could trust. He recruited his
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: own nephew, Hamsa, and the payment promised him a large sum.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Guess how much let me guess sixty thousand dirhams exactly.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: The precise amount Waffa withdrew from the bank right after
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: the murder. That wasn't for funeral flowers. That was Hamsa's payment.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Every detail seems accounted for. They even tried to cover
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the forensic tracks, didn't they.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, Hitcham was thorough. After the murder, Hamsa fled the
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: country immediately went to Turkey. Hitchum himself went on a
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: supposed hunting trip.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Why to create an alibi partly.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: But also to fire more rounds from that specific rifle.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: And crucially, he did something very technical. He changed the
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: rifle's firing pin. Sources called it the waking needle.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, hold on changing the firing pin, Why is that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: such a big deal.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Forensically, it's incredibly sophisticated. Actually, every firing pin leads a
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: unique microscopic mark on the primer of a bullet cartridge.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: When it strikes it, it's like a fingerprint for the gun.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Right ballistics matching exactly.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Police find the bullets at the scene, they find the gun,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: They test fire the gun and compare the filing pin marks.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: If they match, they link the gun to the crime.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So by changing the pin after the.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Murder, Heisham hoped that any test firing the police did
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: with the rifle they found under his bed would produce
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: marks from the new pin which wouldn't match the bullets
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: recovered from Meritis's body. He was trying to create a
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: forensic dead end, making it impossible to definitively link his
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: rifle to the actual shooting.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: That is seriously calculated. Altering the weapons fingerprint a.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Very clever attempt to beat the science and yet.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It didn't work. The whole conspiracy collapsed anyway.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: It did. Despite that effort, the forensic teams were still
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: somehow able to match the bulk bullets from Murdis back
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: to Haitcham's rifle. Maybe the original marks were distinctive enough,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: or maybe there were other microscopic matches on the bullet
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: itself from the beryl's rifling. The specifics aren't detailed, but
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the match was.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Made, and Hamsa the driver.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: He was eventually caught arrested in Turkey about ten months later.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: The net closed in on all.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Of them, so the final judgment the.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Courts came down hard. Hitcham mustre the shooter, lover and
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: hunter sentenced to death by.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Execution, Hamsa the nephew who.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Drove thirty years in prison, and.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Ruquia the sister, the sorceress who made the introduction.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: She got twenty years for her role in the conspiracy
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: and the financial scheme.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And Wafa, the mastermind behind it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: All, life imprisonment.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: It's just staggering a case that starts looking like a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: political hit. Maybe international espionage ends.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Up being driven by pure, cold calculated greed and betrayal,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: orchestrated from within. The family home. Detectives really had to
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: cut through layers of deception, the politics, the fake suspect,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: the dramatic grief.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: It really makes you think about Waffa's motivation, doesn't it
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: She had wealth status. Was it really just about getting
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: more money, getting total control? Or was there an element
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: of rage of wanting freedom mixed in?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: That's the lingering question. I think she sacrificed everything, her family,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: her reputation, multiple lives tangled in her plot, all while
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: putting on this immense public show. What truly drove her
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: more the anger of betrayal, the thrill of the scheme,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: or just that ice cold desire for absolute financial power.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: It's something to really ponder.