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Rabat – The target of yesterday evening’s shooting in Marrakech is allegedly the owner of La Créme café, where the attack occurred, leaving a medical student dead and two others injured.
The gunmen were after the café’s owner, while the medical student was merely “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said television channel 2M. This has not yet been confirmed by the police.
The owner of the café allegedly received death threats before the shooting, said the channel.
He is suspected of having links with international money laundering and drug trafficking rings. Originally from the northern Rif region, he is reported to have lived in the Netherlands before settling in Marrakech.
Preliminary investigations by the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) have confirmed that the shooting was an act of “settling scores” in connection with an international drug trafficking network, which they said was involved in similar crimes in different European countries.
Allegedly, the target left the café minutes before the attackers arrived. Soon after, his seat was taken by the medical student and two other people.
According to 2M, the gunmen then arrived and shot the 26-year-old student mistakenly, thinking that he was the owner of the café.
The suspects fled the scene immediately after the shooting at about 7:45 p.m. local time, using a T-Max motorcycle.
Unnamed sources told the channel that the shooters are not among the six suspects arrested in Casablanca between Thursday evening and Friday morning, and that investigations are still underway.
The deceased victim was named Hamza Chaib, a 26-year old medical student, whose father is a highly placed judge in the city of Beni Mellal. A second victim, also a medical student, is now hospitalized in Marrakech’s clinic. The third was a waiter at the cafe.
The health condition of the two injured victims in now reported to be stable. The woman underwent surgery and the waiter was not severely injured.
While media reports have only announced three casualties, sources told Morocco World News that a journalist was also injured during the incident.
