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| Africa: North |
| More on the Moroccan arrests |
| 2005-08-17 |
| Moroccan police have arrested 13 men suspected of planning terrorist attacks in Morocco with the help of an al-Qaeda linked Algerian Islamist formation, the Algerian MAP news agency reported on Wednesday, citing a senior Moroccan judicial source. Seven of the 13 individuals arrested were arrested in the Moroccan city of Sale, less than a kilometre from the Moroccan capital, Rabat, and the other sixs, in Algeria. In-depth interrogation of all 13 is due to start in early September, the source said. The men, aged between 18 and 30, face charges of criminal conspiracy, attempts to undermine state security and to perpetrate terrorist attacks in public places, as well as extortion, and illegal carrying of weapons, according to a Moroccan court comunique received by MAP. If tried and found guilty, they face between five and 30 year in prison, according to the judicial source. The six arrested in Algeria are suspected of undergoing training with a cell linked to the al-Qaeda linked Salafist Group for Training and Combat (GSPC), the main militant Islamist group still fighting the Algerian authorities in an insurgency dating from 1992. "Those arrested wanted to set up the hard core of a Moroccan GSPC," said the judicial source. Leading Moroccan human rights group Association marocaine des droits humains (AMDH) has called for an investigation of a number of disappearances and kidappings in Sale last week, which they blamed on domestic intelligence services. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 In-depth interrogation of all 13 is due to start in early September, the source said until then, a cup of water and a crust of bread in solitary, to loosen their tongues |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-08-17 19:02 |
| #1 Sale is just across the river from Rabat. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-08-17 18:33 |