CASABLANCA, Morocco, 10 December 2002 — Lawyers for three suspected members of Al-Qaeda charged with trying to blow up US and British warships said yesterday Moroccan authorities had failed to produce any real evidence against their clients.
The three Saudi nationals and seven alleged Moroccan accomplices returned to a Casablanca court yesterday but their trial was postponed for a second time, until Dec. 26, to allow the defense team to contact 11 witnesses.
A lawyer for the Saudi suspects, Toufiq Moussaif, told reporters some of the witnesses would testify that judiciary police had tortured the defendants at a secret police detention center in Temara, just outside the capital Rabat. “The indictments were fabricated,” he said.
Moroccan authorities arrested the 10 suspects in May and June, accusing them of planning “terrorist attacks” in Morocco and on warships in the Gibraltar Strait separating Africa from Europe, and of belonging to Al-Qaeda network.
A second defense lawyer told the court that the prosecution had not produced the home-made bombs and other material which police reported seizing in a suitcase in June. “Nobody saw the contents of the suitcase.
Police say its contents were destroyed, but neither the court nor the examining magistrate know what was in it,” lawyer Khalil Idrissi said. Idrissi welcomed the court’s decision to hear defense witnesses, including representatives of the Saudi Embassy in Morocco, after initially refusing to do so. (R)
