RABAT, 9 August 2003 — The trial of five alleged Islamist militants, including a Frenchman, arrested following with last May’s bomb attacks in Morocco’s coastal city of Casablanca resumed here yesterday.
The defense asked for the accused’s cases to be dealt with separately, saying there was no link between them. The public prosecutor said that the link was terrorism.
The Frenchman, Pierric Picard, 30, from Lyon in southeastern France, was arrested near the northern Moroccan city of Tangiers in early July and is charged with “failing to inform the authorities of a terrorist plot.”
The other defendants face more serious charges of having co-ordinated attacks in the north African kingdom with another Frenchman, Pierre Robert, who is due to appear before the same court in the next few weeks.
Picard’s father, Christian, was in court and told AFP that his son was incapable of violence and just wanted to live as a Muslim. “My son is non-violent, he is a conscientious objector who did his civilian service at a refugee center,” he said, adding that his son had been doing odd jobs in Tangiers to get by and wanted to study Arabic calligraphy.
While the suspects are not facing charges directly related to the May 16 suicide bombings in Casablanca which killed 44 people, a clampdown following the attack has put hundreds of suspected Islamist militants behind bars. Meanwhile, the trial in Casablanca of those allegedly directly linked to the Casablanca bombings was yesterday adjoured to Monday.
