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Coup plotters' jail time longer
08/03/2008 12:38 - (SA)
Rabat - A Moroccan court on Friday
extended the prison sentences of two men convicted of forming a
terrorist cell that planned to overthrow the government.
Hassan Khattab, the suspected ringleader of Ansar el Mehdi
(Mehdi Partisans), saw his jail term increased to 30 years from
25 while former soldier Yassine Ouardini had his increased to 25
from 20 years, state news agency MAP reported.
Fifty suspected group members were found guilty by a lower
court in January of plotting attacks, belonging to an illegal
group, collecting money to fund terrorism and undermining state
security and public order.
They were jailed for two to 25 years after a long and
sometimes rowdy trial in which all the accused pleaded not
guilty. One man was acquitted.
The court on Friday cut the sentences of four women to four
from five years while two men had eight-year terms increased to
10.
Police members recruited
The US-allied government said the gang had recruited
members of the police and the military and received funding from
the wives of two pilots at national airline Royal Air Maroc.
It said the authorities had seized explosives and laboratory
equipment and that the gang planned to rob banks and convoys to
pay for more explosives.
Among their targets were government
buildings and tourist sites in Casablanca and other cities.
Since suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca five
years ago, the Moroccan authorities have rounded up thousands of
Islamists suspected of planning to overthrow the north African
country's secular-minded monarchy. Hundreds have been jailed.
Violence hit the country again last March and April when six
men detonated suicide belts in Casablanca, killing themselves
and one other person. Their suspected accomplices are still on
trial.
Another group dismantled
The government said it recently dismantled another group led
by Abdelkader Belliraj, a Belgian of Moroccan origin, which had
similar designs to Ansar el Mehdi and a political wing, al Badil
al Hadari, that campaigned as a party in elections last year.
The allegations were the first to be levelled at a legal
Islamist party in Morocco and surprised political analysts who
had seen its leader Mustapha Moattasim as a relative moderate.
Belgian investigators visited Morocco this week to assess
Moroccan claims that Belliraj had carried out a series of
assassinations in Belgium in the 1980s.
Rights groups say many Moroccan Islamists have been
convicted of terrorist plots after unfair trials and that some
have confessed under duress. The government denies this.
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