RABAT, 1 October 2003 — A court in Morocco yesterday sentenced 14-year-old twin sisters Imane and Sanae Al-Ghariss to five years in jail for plotting terrorist attacks in the North African country. The twins’ co-defendant, 14-year-old Hakima Rijlane, was acquitted on the same charge by judges at the juvenile court in Rabat.
The three girls had been arrested early this month and were accused of plotting with 18 adult accomplices to carry out suicide attacks in a supermarket in an upscale neighborhood in Rabat, and against the royal family. Prosecutors on Monday called for maximum penalties in the trial of the twins. The twins are also accused of contemplating a plot against King Mohammed of Morocco and of “collecting and managing monies for use in terrorist acts.”
According to defense lawyers, none of the three girls made a closing statement to the court, as is their right under Moroccan law, before it recessed yesterday morning to allow judges to consider a verdict. The twins’ mother and Rijlane’s parents were allowed inside the courtroom yesterday. The defense has pleaded for leniency, in light of the difficult social environment in which the girls had grown up and the alleged exploitation by the girls’ suspected adult accomplices of their “youth and naivete”.
According to newspapers in the North African kingdom, the twins “succumbed to the call of extremism” after a deprived childhood spent in Hay Al-Inbiat, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Rabat. Made up of ramshackle houses crammed against a hillside, Hay Al-Inbiat is only a few hundred meters from the upscale Souissi neighborhood, where the twins planned to blow themselves up in a supermarket, according to police.
