A Moroccan court has sentenced three Islamic State supporters to death for the murder of two Scandinavian women who were beheaded while on a hiking trip in the High Atlas mountains.
The suspected ringleader, Abdessamad Ejjoud, and two other men received the maximum penalty for the murders in December of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, a 24-year-old Danish tourist, and her 28-year-old Norwegian companion Maren Ueland.
Ejjoud, 25, street vendor and underground imam, had confessed to beheading one of the women. Younes Ouaziyad, 27, a carpenter, confessed to the other murder. Rachid Afatti, 33, had videoed the murders on his mobile phone.
The three said they were Isis supporters. The group itself has never claimed responsibility for the murders.
During an 11-week trial at ananti-terrorist court in Salé, near the Moroccan capital, Rabat, prosecutors called for the death penalty despite Morocco having had a de facto freeze on executions since 1993.
“We expect sentences that match the cruelty of the crime,” said Khaled El Fataoui, a lawyer speaking for Jespersen’s family. Jespersen’s mother, Helle Petersen, said in a letter read out in court last week: “The most just thing would be to give these beasts the death penalty they deserve.”
The prosecution labelled the three accused “bloodthirsty monsters”, pointing out that an autopsy report had found 23 injuries on Jespersen’s decapitated body and seven on that of Ueland.
The defence lawyers argued there were “mitigating circumstances on account of their precarious social conditions and psychological disequilibrium”. The accused came from modest backgrounds with a “very low” level of education and lived for the most part in poor areas of Marrakesh.
The court ordered the three men to pay 2m dirhams (£170,000) in compensation to Ueland’s parents.
Jespersen’s lawyers accused the authorities of failing to monitor the activities of some of the suspects before the murders. But the court rejected the family’s request for 10m dirhams in compensation from the Moroccan state for its “moral responsibility”.
The prosecution has called for prison terms of between 15 years and life for 21 other defendants on trial since 2 May.
