 Two men arrested in a sweep to dismantle militant Islamic networks following suicide bombings in Casablanca have been sentenced to death, judicial officials said Tuesday. The Moroccan court that sentenced Taoufik Hanouichi and Mohcine Bouarfa to death also jailed dozens of others in the trial of 46 suspected Islamic militants.
| The Moroccans aren't messing around. Good. Now we can wait a couple years before HRW starts describing them as "political prisoners"... |
Hanouichi and Bouarfa, accused of leading a terror cell in Morocco, were convicted Monday for being complicit to "murder in connection with a terrorist group," justice officials said. The two men were unlikely to be executed, as the North African nation has had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 1993.
| That's too bad. It would have been nice if there had been a moratorium on their victims dying, too... |
Four others were sentenced to life in prison for their role in the 2004 killing of a policeman and the stabbing death of an elderly Moroccan Jew in 2003. Thirty-one people were handed terms ranging from one to 20 years in prison and nine were acquitted, the Moroccan news agency MAP reported. Most of the group was arrested during a police raid in January 2004 of the town of Meknes, 100 miles east of Rabat, in which one officer was killed. The sweep came as part of a drive to dismantle militant Islamic networks following May 16, 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca that killed 32 bystanders and 13 attackers. Authorities have linked the attacks to al-Qaida. Moroccan courts have convicted over 1,000 people under an anti-terrorist law passed following the Casablanca attacks. |