AMSTERDAM, 19/09/08 - MPs and local council members of Moroccan origin are routinely approached by the Moroccan secret service to defend the interests of Morocco. So says Fouad el Haji, a Labour (PvdA) council member in Rotterdam. The Lower House is shocked and has demanded an explanation from the cabinet.

El Haji said on n TV programme Pauw&Witteman that Moroccan-Dutch MPs, local politicians, entrepreneurs and police officers are enticed by the Moroccan secret service to serve the interests of Morocco. Rabat wants to bind them to it financially, culturally and politically, he stated.

El Haji suggested that within the PvdA, Socialist Party (SP) and leftwing Greens (GroenLinks), there are polticians who have taken up the offer and thus work for the secret service. He suggested one or several MPs or ex-MPs are among them. But he declined to name any names.

El Haji said he himself was also approached. "It is a pattern," he explained. "You are invited to gala parties and treated with all attentions. Before you know it, you are on a plane to Morocco. When you visit Morocco, you are even more cosseted."

'Ordinary' Moroccans are also targeted, El Haji continued. For example, they are urged to use their savings to buy a second house in Morocco. The integration process is thereby deliberately frustrated, according to El Haji.

This week, TV programme NOVA revealed that a Rotterdam policeman, Re Lemhaouli, was a spy for the Moroccan secret service. This was discovered last spring, but hushed up by the Dutch authorities, according to NOVA. Now that the case has come out in the open, the criminal investigation service has launched an investigation after all.

At the request of the Christian democrats (CDA), the House will hold an emergency debate on the question next week. The cabinet will send a letter ahead of this. If El Haji's allegations are true, this is "extremely serious," said CDA MP Sybrand van Haersma Buma yesterday.

Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders wants the cabinet to go into El Haij's suggestion that one or more MPs have or have had contacts with the secret service. GroenLinks leader Femke Halsema said any pressure on Moroccan Dutch is "unacceptable."

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said he had spoken with the Moroccan authorities about the Lemhaouli question. As a result of that conversation, the Moroccan embassy recalled two diplomats to Rabat, he revealed yesterday.

Verhagen denied that he had formally summoned the ambassador. Nor would he confirm that the two diplomats were removed at his insistence. But he did say that he has made it clear to Morocco the Netherlands is "ill served by the vile practices" that surfaced regarding Lemhaouli.

Verhagen is assuming that Morocco will from now on "refrain from these types of practices." He declined to speculate on possible consequences for relations between the Netherlands and Morocco.

Wilders said Verhagen should deport the Moroccan ambassador. The PVV leader also claimed yesterday that the question shows he was right when he warned last year that the dual nationality of important officials, including cabinet members, could cause loyalty problems. Virtually the entire Lower House at the time booed down that view.

Social Affairs State Secretary Ahmed Aboutaleb and Justice State Secretary Nebahat Albayrak have a Moroccan and Turkish passport respectively as well as a Dutch one. Aboutaleb said yesterday he has never been approached to carry out work in the Netherlands on behalf of Morocco.

The Netherlands has already been unsuccessfully negotiating with Rabat for years on the question of the double nationality all Moroccans have in the Netherlands. Even Moroccan couples who are both born in the Netherlands and want to be Dutch only receive Moroccan nationality, also for their offspring.

Like the PVV, the conservatives (VVD) did not mince words about Moroccans in the Netherlands who allow themselves to be influenced by Rabat. "They have two passports. If they think their future lies in Morocco, then they must clear off there as quickly as possible," said VVD MP Fred Teeven.

The VVD wants to know why the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) has only taken action after the Lemhaouli case became public. In the first instance, the OM decided not to prosecute him. Socailist Party (MP) Jan de Wit also called the spying practices "inadmissible."