One of two French authors accused of demanding up to 3 million euros from Morocco’s king in exchange for not publishing a compromising new book about him says it was, in fact, the North African state that proposed the deal as hush money.<br /><br /> Eric Laurent doesn’t deny going along with what he calls a “private transaction”.<br /><br /> “It is my book and it’s my business,” he told French radio on Monday.<br /><br /> “I can do whatever I want with it. It is not public property. The other side transformed a private transaction into what they call blackmail or attempted blackmail by me, but this is absurd.”<br /><br /> King Mohammed’s lawyer, Eric Dupont-Moretti, takes a different view – putting it this way.<br /><br /> “You come to threaten me on a Sunday. You say you’ll come round to my house on Tuesday. On Monday, I ask the police to intervene. Is this a trap?”<br /><br /> Whatever the truth, reports say the pair’s publishing house won’t now publish the book as its relationship of trust with the journalists, Eric Laurent and Catherine Gra
