Three men in Morocco have been sentenced to three years each, after being accused of being gay, a human rights group said on Monday.

According to the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH), the men were sentenced on Friday to three years in jail at a court in the city of Taourirt, Morocco.

Two of the men, a mechanic in his 40s and another man in his 20s, were allegedly “caught in the act” at a mechanic’s workshop in the North African country.

They were apparently caught following a neighbour’s tip-off to the police, Ammari told Agence France-Presse.

According to Ammari, the two men then implicated a friend through whom they had met, who was also arrested and apparently admitted to having sex with men. The three confessed to the additional charges of prostitution and preventing the course of justice,

The three confessed to the additional charges of prostitution and preventing the course of justice, Le Monde newspaper reported.

Same-sex sexual activity is a crime in Morocco, with a maximum possible sentence of 3 years – to which they were all sentenced.

Moroccan law penalises what it refers to as acts of “sexual deviancy” between members of the same sex, a term that police reports and court documents use to refer to homosexuality.

Human Rights Watch have called on Morocco to decriminalise homosexuality, saying that “criminalising consensual, adult homosexual conduct violates international human rights law”.

It noted that article 24 of Morocco’s 2011 constitution states that “all persons have the right to protection of their private life”.

Moroccan authorities have declined to comment.