RABAT: A Morocco prosecutor on Thursday brought seven new suspects including a Spanish-Swiss man before a Rabat anti-terror judge in connection with the murder of two Scandinavian women in the Atlas Mountains.
The prosecution asked that the suspects be investigated for “forming a gang to prepare and carry out terrorist acts, premeditated assistance to perpetrators of terrorist acts and training people to join a terrorist organization,” Rabat’s attorney general said.
The prosecutor called on the judge to place the suspects in pre-trial detention.
Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland were found dead at an isolated hiking spot south of Marrakesh on December 17.
The two women were beheaded, authorities have said.
Fifteen people, including the four main suspects, were brought before the judge on Sunday over their alleged links to the double homicide, labelled a “terrorist” act by Rabat.
The Spanish-Swiss man in Thursday’s group had been living in Morocco and was detained in Marrakesh over alleged links to some of the suspects.
He subscribed to “extremist ideology,” according to Morocco’s central office for judicial investigations.
The four main suspects were also arrested in Marrakesh and belonged to a cell inspired by Daesh ideology, Morocco’s counter-terror chief Abdelhak Khiam told AFP.
None of the four had contact with Daesh members in Syria or Iraq, he said.
The head of the suspected cell is 25-year-old street vendor Abdessamad Ejjoud, according to investigators.
He was identified in a video filmed a week before the double-murder, in which the four main suspects pledged allegiance to Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, according to authorities.
The killings have shaken Norway, Denmark and Morocco. Another video circulated on social networks allegedly showed the murder of one of the tourists.
Morocco, which relies heavily on tourism income, suffered an extremist attack in 2011, when a bomb blast at a cafe in Marrakesh’s famed Jamaa El Fna Square killed 17 people, mostly European tourists.
An attack in the North African state’s financial capital Casablanca killed 33 people in 2003.
7 new suspects brought before Morocco judge in slain hikers case
7 new suspects brought before Morocco judge in slain hikers case
- Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland were found dead at an isolated hiking spot south of Marrakesh on December 17
- The two women were beheaded, authorities have said.
Iran unrest persists, top judge warns protesters
- Demonstrations sparked by soaring inflation
- Western provinces worst affected
DUBAI: Iran’s top judge warned protesters on Wednesday there would be “no leniency for those who help the enemy against the Islamic Republic,” while accusing Israel and the US of pursuing hybrid methods to disrupt the country.
The current protests, the biggest wave of dissent in three years, began last month in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar by shopkeepers condemning the currency’s free fall.
Unrest has since spread nationwide amid deepening distress over economic hardships, including rocketing inflation driven by mismanagement and Western sanctions, and curbs on political and social freedoms.
“Following announcements by Israel and the US president, there is no excuse for those coming to the streets for riots and unrest, chief justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of Iran’s judiciary, was quoted as saying by state media.
“From now on, there will be no leniency for whoever helps the enemy against the Islamic Republic and the calm of the people,” Ejei said.
Iranian authorities have not given a death toll for protesters, but have said at least two members of the security services have died and more than a dozen have been injured.
Iran’s western provinces have witnessed the most violent protests.
“During the funeral of two people in Malekshahi on Tuesday, a number of attendees began chanting harsh, anti-system slogans,” said Iran’s Fars, news agency.
After the funeral, Fars said, “about 100 mourners went into the city and trashed three banks ... Some started shooting at the police trying to disperse them.”
The semi-official Mehr news agency said protesters stormed a food store and emptied bags of rice, which has been affected by galloping inflation that has made ordinary staples increasingly unaffordable for many Iranians.
