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.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012