French trial for 2003 Casablanca attack suspects
Source: Reuters
PARIS, April 12 (Reuters) - French investigators have sent for trial eight suspected members of a Moroccan Islamist movement for their alleged role in the 2003 Casablanca attacks in which 45 people died, judicial sources said on Thursday. The accused are charged with association with criminals engaged in a terrorist undertaking and face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. They are suspected of belonging to a France-based logistics cell of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group that carried out the May 16, 2003 attacks on the Moroccan city of Casablanca. Prosecutors say the men raised money and forged documents for the group, known by its French acronym GICM, and met some of the 13 suicide bombers who perished in the attacks. The judicial sources said most of the suspects had admitted holding Islamist beliefs but not membership of the GICM. They also admitted visiting Islamist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan where they are alleged to have undergone weapons and explosives training. The GICM has been linked to the Madrid train bombings of March 2004 which killed 191 people. The United States has listed it as a terrorist group whose aim is to establish an Islamic state in Morocco and to support al Qaeda's struggle against Western countries.
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