Founder of Radical Morocco Islamist Party Dies

Abdessalam Yassine, spiritual leader of Morocco's radical Justice and Charity Islamist movement and outspoken opponent of the monarchy, died on Thursday aged 84, the banned but tolerated group's spokesman told AFP.

The founder of the movement, known as Adl wal Ihsan in Arabic, died at around 0730 GMT, Fathallah Arsalane said.

His funeral is due to be held during weekly Muslim prayers on Friday at the Sunna mosque in central Rabat, with a large crowd likely to attend.

As founder of Morocco's most popular Islamist movement, Sheikh Yassine had running problems with the authorities during the so-called Years of Lead under the late king Hassan II, when he was imprisoned twice and placed under house arrest.

The movement he created in 1973, which advocated establishment of an Islamist state but rejecting violence to achieve it, actively participated in Arab Spring protests that erupted in Morocco in February 2011.

But it distanced itself from the February 20 protest movement in December last year, considering its demands too limited.

Originally from southern Morocco, Sheikh Yassine viewed the nature of the monarchy under Hassan II unacceptable from an Islamic perspective, and sent an open letter to the king in 1974 urging him to choose between "Islam or the deluge."

He was imprisoned shortly afterwards for three and a half years without charge, before being confined to a mental hospital.

He was jailed again in 1983 for two years, and finally placed under house arrest until the accession to the throne in 2000 of King Mohammed VI.

His movement refuses to recognize the king's official title, commander of the faithful, a key difference with the moderate Islamist Party of Justice and Development, which won last year's elections and heads the ruling coalition.

In March 2011, Sheikh Yassine's daughter Nadia described the reforms announced by Mohammed VI, in a landmark speech that paved the way for a new constitution designed to curb his near-absolute powers, as insufficient.

"I consider that the promises in the royal speeches are insufficient because they do not challenge the pre-eminence of the monarchy," she told AFP.

The number of supporters of Adl wal Ihsan, which has always operated discreetly and rejected all involvement in politics under the Moroccan monarchy, remains unknown.

But Nadia Yassine said the movement had a large component of youth activists.

"It's a movement that... is very active in many poor neighborhoods," said Baudouin Dupret of the Rabat-based Jacques Berque research center, adding that Adl wal Ihsan's withdrawal was a key reason for the protest movement's disintegration.

Dupret described Sheikh Yassine as an "emblematic figure" who was a part of Moroccan life for 40 years and towered above any of his possible successors.

While his daughter has a "strong personality," he said she lacked her father's spiritual aura.