CASABLANCA, 22 July 2003 — A Moroccan court yesterday postponed the trial of 52 suspected militants in connection with suicide bombings that killed 44 people in May.
The court ruled to put off the hearings until Friday for a group of 33 defendants and Monday for the remaining 19 in order to allow their lawyers more time to prepare their brief.
During the brief session, the presiding judge of the criminal chamber of Casablanca’s appeals court demanded that three would-be suicide bombers who had survived their attacks identify themselves.
They were placed in court along with their co-defendants in a cage of bulletproof glass, under high security, to face charges of “criminal association, undermining internal state security, sabotage, murder, intention to cause injury and permanent invalidity”.
The men were named as 23-year-old night security guard Mohamed El-Omari, alias Abou Zoubeir, 27-year-old welder Rachid Jalil, alias Abou Anas, and 22-year-old street vendor Yassine Lahnech, alias Abou Ibrahim.
Most of the other 49 defendants were allegedly involved in the attacks in “various degrees” and will be tried on the same charges, prosecutors have said. The defendants could face the death penalty.
The defendants seemed to be in their 20s or early 30s, most of them were bearded and some wore long grey Afghan-style robes.
No group claimed responsibility for the simultaneous attacks which shocked the North African kingdom. The government has said some of the suspects had indirect links to Al-Qaeda and had planned bombings in other Moroccan towns.
Investigators homed in on an ultra-conservative Islamist movement they dubbed the “Salafist Jihad Current”. Regarded as a loose alliance of Islamic groups, the movement includes veterans of military campaigns in Afghanistan.
Under anti-terrorism legislation approved within days of the bombings, the defendants can be sentenced to death by firing squad if found guilty of “terrorist acts”.
In a separate case on July 11, the same Casablanca court handed down death sentences to 10 Islamists for homicide, in a case that predated the bombings.
Morocco has carried out the death penalty only once in the last 20 years. In 1993, a police commissioner was executed for a three-year orgy of rape and sexual violence.
Most of the suspected bombers came from the same Casablanca shantytown. The attacks prompted national soul-searching on unemployment and low educational standards regarded as making young men susceptible to extremist preachings.
Yussef Fikri, thought to have led the group that carried out the Casablanca attacks even though he was arrested prior to the bombings, was among those sentenced to death after being found guilty of various charges including murder. Morocco has repeatedly insisted that the suspects have ties to international extremist groups, including Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
