On Thursday, the three men facing trial in Salé, a suburb of the Moroccan capital of Rabat, together with 21 additional co-defendants. It is Abdessamad Ejjoud, Younes Ouzyad and Rachid Afati, accused of the actual murder.
On 17 december last year found the dead bodies of 24-year-old dane Louise Vesterager Jespersen and Maren Ueland, 28, from Norway. The women was murdered in the Atlas mountains in Morocco and had been the victim of distraction knivvåld.
moroccan police have arrested several suspects, among them Ejjoud, Ouzyad and Afati, as well as a fourth crony who participated in the planning of the deed.
The Norwegian newspaper VG has taken part of interviews with the suspects. It is clear that the mutually discussed to travel as volunteers to the IS ”caliphate” in Syria. But because they had no money or passport, they decided instead to kill foreign tourists in the moroccan land, in terrororganisationens name.
the Men, who are residents of the city of Marrakech, travelled to the nearby mountain village of Imlil. The village is popular among foreign tourists who want to do hiking tours on the over 4,000-metre high mount Toubkal.
Moroccans are looking after the victims that they were going to kill the ”ICE way” – elaborate painfully, and preferably also a video of the deed. After a few days, they by chance on Louisa Vesterager Jespersen and Maren Ueland as they are shaded after a hiking trail. When the women put up their tent, they were assaulted and murdered.
a cell phone camera and it was uploaded in a video on social media. The movie clip is a part of the evidence against the men, who readily admits ICE-age. In another movie clip swear the men of his fidelity to terrorist organisations.
the Men’s defense attorney Hafia Makssaui says to VG that her clients will admit to the murders before the court on Thursday. She will plead to the judge to take into account that the men cooperated with the police.
the Deed aroused great disgust the world over, even in Morocco, where the solidarity actions promoted have been held for the murdered women in several places. The prosecutor in the case will require the death penalty. He has in connection with the trial called the men ”worse than animals”.
Morocco has not carried out any death sentences since 1993. But it has been a public opinion through the network that the death penalty should be applied in this particular case.
led to other court actions. In Denmark recently sentenced a woman to three months in prison suspended for spreading the video documenting the murders of women. Another fourteen persons at risk of being sentenced for the dissemination. The offence consists in the unlawful dissemination of images concerning another person’s private affairs.
Earlier this year sentenced a swiss citizen to 10 years in prison in Morocco for having tried to form a terrorcell with IS-supporters. The man had some connection to the trio now accused of double murder.