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MOROCCO-TRIAL
Two Dutch citizens sentenced to death in Morocco
RABAT, July 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Moroccan court has sentenced to death two Dutch citizens
over the accidental killing of a medical student in 2017, a lawyer for the victim’s family said
Saturday.
Two years ago Edwin Gabriel Robles Martinez and Shardyone Girigorio Semerel allegedly opened
fire on a cafe in the tourist hub of Marrakech.
They had apparently been aiming at the cafe’s owner, but instead killing the student and
wounding two other people, local media reported.
At the time local officials said the shooting was a “settling of accounts” that was “directly
linked to a criminal network which has ramifications in some European countries”.
On Friday a court sentenced to jail 15 other suspects in the same case, handing them terms
ranging between three and 20 years for setting up a “criminal gang”, lawyer Abdellatif Htitech
told AFP.
Among those convicted was the cafe’s owner, who received a 15-year prison sentence for “drug
trafficking”, said Htitech, who represents the family of the medical student.
A spokeswoman for the foreign ministry in the Netherlands told AFP that the Dutch embassy “is
in direct contact with the lawyer”, without giving further details.
Asked if the Netherlands would intervene, Annemijn van den Broek said it was up to those
convicted to decide whether or not to appeal.
But she added that the Netherlands is opposed to the death penalty.
Morocco — which last issued a death sentence earlier this month against three Islamic State
group supporters over the beheadings of two Scandinavian women tourists — has had a de facto
freeze on executions since 1993.
Several people were arrested in the days following the 2017 shooting.
BSS/AFP/MRU/2356hrs