Imprisoned for alleged connections to the 2003 Casablanca bombings, Kettani was pardoned by Mohammed VI eight years later after efforts by his lawyer and human rights groups, and the success of Islamists in Morocco's parliament.
However many human rights groups have pointed at the fact that Shaykh Hasan was targeted due to the crackdown on Islamist scholars and activist, he was released in 2013 after years of torture and persecution.
[3] Moroccan politician Mohamed Bouzoubaa criticized the move as being more concerned with politics than human rights, though Kettani's lawyer Mustafa Ramid upheld that he and other Islamists were victims of unjust trials.
He has often spoken against what he sees as depraved Western influence in Moroccan society, and his views prior to his incarceration had been regarded as extreme by many in the security establishment.
[11] Kettani's family being rooted in Morocco's traditional religious scholarship, he is an expert in both the Zahirite and Malikite schools of Islamic law,[2] though his conservative views have been described as being at odds with the latter.