{"id":27463,"date":"2018-12-30T21:22:31","date_gmt":"2018-12-30T21:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27463"},"modified":"2018-12-30T21:22:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-30T21:22:31","slug":"morocco-15-suspects-face-judge-over-scandinavian-hiker-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27463","title":{"rendered":"Morocco: 15 suspects face judge over Scandinavian hiker murders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Fifteen people suspected of links to the murder<\/a> of two Scandinavian women in the Atlas Mountains have appeared before a judge in Morocco<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The attorney general’s office in Rabat said in a statement on Sunday that the prosecution requested the investigation of the suspects for\u00a0“setting up a gang to prepare and commit terrorist acts, premeditated attacks on life and advocating for terrorism”.<\/p>\n

The statement said seven other detainees would be referred to the prosecution in the coming days.<\/p>\n

It was unclear whether the suspects, who were brought to the Court of First Instance in Sale, near Rabat, in a convoy of four police vans amid tight security, included a Swiss-Spanish man arrested<\/a>\u00a0in Marrakech on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The two students – Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, of Denmark<\/a>, and Maren Ueland, 28, of Norway<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0were found beheaded on December 17 near the village of Imlil, on a route to Toubkal, North Africa’s highest peak and a popular hiking and trekking destination.<\/p>\n

‘Terrorist’ act<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Moroccan authorities have arrested about 20 people over their alleged links to the double murder, labelled a “terrorist” act by Rabat.<\/p>\n

Among those arrested was the Swiss-Spanish man living in Morocco who allegedly had links to some of the suspects, teaching them social media skills and archery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He subscribed to “extremist ideology”, according to Morocco’s central office for judicial investigations.<\/p>\n

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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nThe killings have shaken Norway, Denmark and Morocco\u00a0<\/span>[Screenshot Reuters TV]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It said the man was also suspected of involvement in recruiting Moroccans and sub-Saharan Africans for “terrorist schemes” targeted at “foreign interests and security forces”.<\/p>\n

The four main suspects were arrested in Marrakesh and belonged to a cell inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS<\/a>) armed group, Morocco’s counterterrorism chief Abdelhak Khiam told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

However, none of the four had contact with ISIL members in Syria or Iraq, he said.<\/p>\n

Pledge of allegiance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The head of the suspected cell is 25-year-old street vendor Abdessamad Ejjoud, according to investigators.<\/p>\n

He was identified in a video in which the four main suspects pledged allegiance to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

The killings have shaken Norway, Denmark and Morocco. Another video circulated on social media networks allegedly showed the murder of one of the tourists.<\/p>\n

Morocco, which relies heavily on tourism income, suffered an attack in 2011, when a bomb blast at a cafe in Marrakesh’s Jamaa El Fna Square killed 17 people, mostly European tourists.<\/p>\n

An attack in the North African state’s financial capital Casablanca killed 33 people in 2003.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifteen people suspected of links to the murder of two Scandinavian women in the Atlas Mountains have appeared before a judge in Morocco. The attorney general’s office in Rabat said in a statement on Sunday that the prosecution requested the investigation of the suspects for\u00a0“setting up a gang to prepare and commit terrorist acts, premeditated…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}