RABAT, 23 June — A Moroccan newspaper has cast doubts on the legitimacy of the arrest of three Saudis in Casablanca on suspicion of their link with Al-Qaeda network and criticized the Moroccan authorities for making dubious charges against them.
A report carried by Journal Hebdomadaire, an independent weekly, said there were “contradictions, aberrations” in information given to the media.
“What remains to be seen is why this business was either hastily put together or blown out of all proportion,” added the journal, which wondered whether the Moroccan intelligence services might have been “manipulated by the Americans” or were “conniving with them.”
Hebdomadaire’s report came after the Saudis arrested on suspicion of planning attacks in Morocco and against NATO warships in the Strait of Gibraltar rejected all charges against them.
Two of the men, however, admitted that they joined Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization “at a time when this movement challenged the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan before opposing American neo-colonialism in that country,” lawyer Taoufik Moussaiif Benhamou told the Islamic newspaper Al-Assar.
The three were arrested last month in Casablanca and are being held there. They are suspected of belonging to an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell and alleged to have been preparing attacks against Morocco and on NATO vessels, according to the Interior Ministry.
But their lawyer said: “There is no element of proof in the dossier... these are just allegations.”
The lawyer said the three Saudis had come to the country to settle down there. Their impending departure for Saudi Arabia at the time of their arrest had simply been linked to “administrative formalities in connection with the marriages of two to Moroccan women,” he added.
The two women were also arrested at the time on suspicion of having formed an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell with the Saudis which was planning suicide attacks on Western warships off Gibraltar and on Moroccan territory.
Benhamou and another defense lawyer have criticized what they say are irregularities in the police investigation into the three Saudis and four Moroccans under investigation with them.
“The attorney general violated penal procedures in divulging the details of the preliminary enquiry,” fellow defense attorney Abdallah Al-Amri told the newspaper Asabah.
“This is the first time there has been such a violation of confidentiality in a preliminary enquiry in Morocco,” he added.
Benhamou cited other alleged irregularities, together with “insults and humiliations,” of the detained persons. He said each was being kept in a solitary cell without visitation rights.
The lawyer also claimed police had forced them to sign a written report on interrogations whose contents they did not know. The three Saudis were charged in Casablanca on Tuesday with preparing to attack buses around Morocco and a square in Marrakesh.
The Moroccan Interior Ministry identified the three Saudis as Hilal Jaber Awad Al-Assiri, Abdullah Mesfer Ali Al-Ghamdi and Zuheir Al-Thbaiti. They first appeared before a judge on May 14, before being charged with targeting Marrakesh’s famous Jemaa-el-Fna Square.
Asharq Al-Awsat, quoting a well-informed source in Rabat, pointed out a similarity in names among suspects, saying there should be no confusion between one of the three arrested Saudis and a man considered by Washington to be a top Al-Qaeda figure. The source said that the name Zuhair Al-Haili, also known as Zuheir Hilal Mohamed Al-Thbaiti, should not be muddled up with Zubair Al-Haili.
Last Tuesday, ABC News reported, quoting US intelligence sources, that Moroccan officials had arrested Abu Zubair Al-Haili, nicknamed “the bear,” a Saudi national said to have been instrumental in helping Al-Qaeda regroup after the US-led war on terror was launched in Afghanistan in October.
Aujourd’hui le Maroc, an independent Moroccan newspaper, said the arrest of the three Saudi men was a “red alert” to the wide presence of Islamists at work in the country.
Militant cells had been “implanted just about everywhere across Morocco,” the daily said. It said that small groups were trying to recruit members “from among the mass of the frustrated and underprivileged that never ceases to grow.”
