Hajar Raissouni was reportedly arrested on August 31 this year while leaving a clinic in the capital, Rabat. She was then prosecuted and jailed the next month as prosecutors said she was undergoing “late voluntary abortion”.
Her lawyer Saad Sahli, Raissouni rejected the illegal abortion allegation, saying she was undergoing treatment for internal bleeding.
“This trial had no foundation – the accusations were baseless,” defence lawyer Abdelmoula El Marouri is quoted as saying after the verdict.
According to Africafeeds.com, who works for Akhbar Al-Yaoum – an Arabic daily with a history of run-ins with authorities was also sentenced under Article 490 of the legal code of Morocco.
She was accused of having a sexual relationship with a Sudanese fiancé outside of her marriage, an act punishable by the Moroccan laws.
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Both her lover and the gynaecologist who carried out the abortion have also been jailed one and two-years, respectively.
However, the king of Morocco Mohammed VI has pardoned Raissouni.
The justice ministry of the North African country said on Wednesday that the king’s intervention in the case was “an act of compassion and mercy”.