Morocco Court Condemns to Death for Killing Scandinavian Hikers

A Moroccan court on Thursday condemned three suspected jihadists to death for the murders of two Scandinavian women beheaded while on a hiking trip in Morocco.

Suspected ringleader Abdessamad Ejjoud and two companions received the maximum penalty over the appalling December killings of Danish tourist Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland.

The final court session of the 11-week trial took place on Thursday in Sale, near the north African country’s capital Rabat.

“We expect sentences that match the cruelty of the crime,” lawyer Khaled El Fataoui, speaking for the family of Danish victim Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, told AFP prior to the verdicts being reached.

Helle Petersen, her mother, in a letter read out in court last week, said: “The most just thing would be to give these beasts the death penalty they deserve.”

Prosecutors called for the death penalty for the three main suspects behind the killings in the High Atlas mountains last December.

The maximum sentence was sought for 25-year-old suspected ringleader Ejjoud and two radicalised Moroccans, although Morocco has had a de facto freeze on executions since 1993.’