RABAT, 23 February 2003 — A Moroccan court jailed three Saudi members of Al-Qaeda for 10 years on Friday. They were accused of plotting to attack US and British warships in the Straits of Gibraltar last year, their lawyer said.
Khalil Idrissi said Casablanca’s appeal court acquitted the three of attempted sabotage and attempted homicide, synonymous with terrorist acts, under Moroccan criminal law. However, they were convicted on lesser charges.
“I ask for the maximum penalty because of the gravity of the crimes attributed to the accused and to put an end to terrorism, this blight that all societies are fighting,” the prosecutor, Saoud Grain, had told the court earlier this week.
Meanwhile, another lawyer for the three Saudis yesterday said the verdict was fair because charges of plotting terrorist attacks had been dropped.
The prosecution had sought the death penalty for them for plotting to sail a dinghy loaded with explosives to attack US and British warships in the Straits of Gibraltar and bombing tourist sites in Morocco last year.
“We were relieved to hear the verdict. My assessment is that it was pretty fair since it dropped charges which were not backed by any material evidence,” lawyer Mustapha Ramid said.
The court also sentenced several Moroccan accomplices to lesser terms, including three women who were jailed for six months for using false documents and destroying evidence, the official MAP news agency said.
Authorities arrested the 10 suspects last May and June, accusing them of planning “terrorist attacks” in Morocco and on warships in the straits separating Africa from Europe, and of belonging to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. MAP agency said at least one Moroccan had been acquitted.
The three Saudis — Zuhair Hilal Tabiti, Abdullah Mesfer Ali Al-Ghamdi and Hilal Jaber Al-Assiri — had come to Morocco intending to settle down, the defense argued.
They fled Afghanistan soon after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington in fear of US retaliation and wanted to break with their past, the defense added.
They had joined Al-Qaeda camps to undergo military training and fight alongside Chechen rebels against Russian forces, the defense said.
Tabiti told the court that he had met Bin Laden in Afghanistan. “The accusations were invented by the Moroccan and Israeli secret services,” Tabiti alleged in the court.
“We can’t really blame the court for jailing them on grounds of criminal conspiracy since the conditions surrounding their arrival in Morocco might appear dubious,” said Ramid, who is also a key figure in the opposition Islamist Justice and Development Party. He told Reuters the defense would lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court within the next 10 days. But he cautioned that “it can take the Supreme Court a year or two to deliberate on a case.”
The defense team said the suspects were tortured and sexually abused by Morocco’s security services and the case, which they said lacked material evidence to back the charges, had been fabricated.
Amnesty International said it received reports of detainees being tortured or ill-treated in custody in order to extract confessions or to force them to sign statements.
“Many of the reports say Islamists are held in secret detention. They are accused of being involved in, or planning, violent acts,” said a statement on Friday.
“Amnesty International fears that the cases of 10 Saudi and Moroccan men and women... are just one example among many of a renewed practice of secret detention and torture,” it said.
