A former worker for the Dutch counter-terrorism unit NCTV been found not guilty of espionage and leaking state secrets to Morocco.

Abderrahim el M worked for the NCTV where he reported on salafism and jihadism. At the same time, the public prosecution office alleged during his trial, he led a double life spying for the Moroccan secret service.

In 2023, the justice department was alerted to the man’s illicit activities by the domestic intelligence unit AIVD, which filmed M printing and bagging classified information. The video footage of El M printing out documents using a pass borrowed from a colleague led to his arrest at Schiphol moments before his flight to Morocco.

He had 928 documents in his possession, including 345 documents from secret service AIVD and 65 from military intelligence service MIVD.

El M was found not guilty of spying but was found guilty of possessing a large number of state secrets without the proper permissions. He had faced 12 years in jail but was sentenced to 20 months for the lesser offence – time he had already spent in jail awaiting trial.

M had declined to make a statement for two years but eventually said that the documents were in his baggage by mistake. He claimed he had been taking them home to work on – something which is not allowed by law.