Frenchman faces death for bombs
2003-09-16 14:54
Rabat - The trial of the alleged French ringleader of an Islamist cell accused of involvement in the May 16 attacks in Casablanca, Pierre Robert, was adjourned till September 18 early on Tuesday after the prosecution said he should be sentenced to death.
Eleven of Robert's alleged accomplices should also be given the death penalty, the prosecutor at Rabat's criminal court said.
The trial would resume on Thursday with a session devoted to the "last words" of the accused.
Robert and 33 suspected accomplices face charges over the bombings in May in Casablanca, the economic capital of the north African kingdom, which killed 45 people including 12 suicide bombers.
According to the prosecutor, 18 of the co-defendants had acknowledged Robert as their leader.
They had identified him as "emir" or commander of their group, he said.
Another seven defendants had admitted knowing Robert but had not acknowledged him as leader, the prosecutor further noted.
The prosecutor said he was seeking the death penalty for the accused in connection with charges that they were "preparing terrorist acts against commercial and tourist sites, notably in Tangiers, Fez, Rabat and Meknes", not directly in connection with the Casablanca attacks.
The group was plotting attacks against, among other targets, the casino in Tangiers as well as a supermarket in the northern city, which if successful could have been even more devastating than the Casablanca attacks, the prosecutor said in his summing up.
French intelligence
The prosecutor singled out 10 of the accused, including Robert, as "the most dangerous" of the 34, accused of plotting to "overthrow the Moroccan regime."
He said he believed only three of the 33 brought to court with Robert did not, in fact, have any links with the alleged extremist cell that the Frenchman was accused of leading.
Nine of Robert's alleged accomplices denied in court last Wednesday that they had any links with the French national or with Salafia Jihadia, the Islamic extremist group which Moroccan investigators have said was behind the Casablanca attacks.
The prosecutor also urged the death penalty for two other defendants, accused of murdering a woman in Tangiers, in the trial which began on August 25.
Robert, 34, hails from Saint-Etienne in central France. He converted to the Islamic faith at age 17, and was arrested at Tangiers on June 3.
The Frenchman has denied any involvement in the Casablanca attacks, in which booby-trapped cars exploded outside an international hotel, a Jewish cultural centre and an Italian restaurant, and suicide bombers detonated their bombs at a Spanish club and a Jewish cemetery.
He testified last week that he had worked for French intelligence in the past five years, infiltrating and spying on Muslim extremist groups - claims denied by France.