Radio Mauritanie journalist Mohamed Lemine Sidi Arafa revealed during his questioning in the case known as the "bloggers abroad" file that he had received sums of money totalling 90,000 old ouguiyas from a blogger based in the United States, explaining that the transfers were made on two occasions and for reasons he described as personal and humanitarian.
He said the first payment, of 70,000 old ouguiyas, reached him after he told the blogger about the birth of his daughter, while the second, of 20,000 ouguiyas, was to help him with the cost of treatment for his son, who was receiving care in hospital.
On the nature of his dealings with the blogger, he said the latter sometimes sent him written texts and posts, asking him to review and arrange them and to add the name "Al-Kabsh Al-Nattah" and its accompanying hashtag, before sending them back.
He also said he had helped him draft some posts of a critical nature during the rule of the former president, without giving further details about their content.
He added that their relationship is not recent but dates back to childhood and school years, before contact resumed after the blogger moved to the United States and became active on social media.
Information published by the blogger on military and security matters formed part of the investigators' questions, particularly posts and live broadcasts published between 2024 and 2026, which spoke of the presence of foreign military personnel at a base in Mauritania, the movement and deployment of military units on the eastern border, and the type of equipment used, as well as information linked to an agreement in the energy sector.
According to his statement, he said he did not know the sources the blogger relied on to publish that information.
He also denied any knowledge of the sources of two earlier posts by the blogger, one published in November 2023 on European cooperation with a neighbouring country in combating irregular migration, and the other in March 2024 on what it described as the marginalisation and exclusion faced by a section of society in some government sectors.
The questioning also covered the content of live broadcasts by two other people, which dealt with issues related to security information, incitement and breaches of public security. In response, he said he had no relationship with the two and did not know the sources of the information in their broadcasts or the background to their publication. The names of those concerned are given in the Arabic version of this article.
