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Rabat – The Imlil terrorist attack trial will begin on May 2 in Morocco, defence lawyer Saad Sahli told AFP today.
Twenty-four defendants will face trial in Sale, a city next to Morocco’s capital Rabat.
Twenty-four-year-old Louisa Vesterager Jespersen from Denmark and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland were killed in the Atlas Mountains near Imlil in December, in what Moroccan authorities described as a criminal and a terrorist act.
The defendants will face charges including promoting terrorism, forming a terrorist cell, or causing premeditated harm to persons, Sahli told the news agency.
The victims were found in a popular hiking area in the High Atlas Mountains, near Mount Toubkal.
Police arrested four main suspects immediately in relation to the incident. A video that circulated on social media, which Norwegian police said they had no reason to doubt, showed the murder of one of the victims. The four suspects had also appeared in separate video footage pledging allegiance to the Islamic State.
Moroccan authorities subsequently made a number of other arrests, including Swiss-Spanish national Kevin Zoller Guervos, who appeared in court in February.
The Norwegian and Danish embassies assigned a lawyer from Marrakech to both victims’ families for the upcoming trial.
The United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office updated it’s Morocco travel advice on March 20, noting the Imlil incident and stating that “terrorists are very likely to carry out attacks in Morocco.”
