Morocco Denies Police Rape Allegation

Rabat government dismissed the group`s findings as excessively critical of Morocco and indulgent towards Polisario.

Morocco's Interior Ministry has denied allegations by rights groups that police raped a young woman to try to obtain information on supporters of the independentist Polisario Front in disputed Western Sahara.

The alleged assault happened near a stronghold of Polisario supporters in Laayoune, Western Sahara's main city, the Sahrawi Defenders Organisation and the Human Rights Sahrawi Defenders Collective said in statements on Saturday.

An Interior Ministry official dismissed the allegations.

"No girl was questioned or detained in the territory by the police. We do not know from where they were getting such information," the official told Reuters.

In December, New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Morocco of beating and torturing independence campaigners in Western Sahara and said U.N. peacekeepers should start monitoring human rights in the territory.

Rabat government dismissed the group's findings as excessively critical of Morocco and indulgent towards Polisario.

Morocco took control of most of Western Sahara in 1975 when colonial power Spain withdrew, sparking a war with Polisario which seeks an independent state in the territory, which is larger than Britain.

Both sides observe a ceasefire since 1991 when U.N brokered a peace plan which is now stalled because of different views between Rabat and Polisario over the fate of the territory.