Morocco bomb suspects get death sentences
( 2003-08-19 11:40) (Agencies)
A Moroccan court early on Tuesday sentenced four men to death in connection
with suicide bombings in Casablanca in May that killed 33 bystanders.
The judges found the four guilty of premeditated murder in the five
simultaneous attacks on May 16 in which 45 people were killed, including 12
suicide bombers on May 16.
Two of those sentenced to death were among the 14-member suicide team, but
who survived.
The four were among 87 defendants the public prosecutor at the trial accused
of belonging to a shadowy, ultra-conservative Islamist movement, the Salafist
Jihad, which advocates violence against U.S. interests and Jews in Morocco and
also against Muslim Moroccans it finds insufficiently observant.
Morocco has only carried out the death sentence once in the last 20 years.
The judges also sentenced one mosque preacher to life imprisonment, and three
other preachers to 30 years jail each.
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