Author: AP
Publication: The Taipei Times
Date: September 20, 2003
URL: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/09/20/2003068563
A French convert to Islam was sentenced
to life in prison on charges of trying to organize an uprising in the North
African kingdom.
A prosecutor sought the death penalty
for Pierre Robert, 31, but he was spared on Thursday by a three-judge panel
in the Moroccan capital, Rabat.
On the trial's last day, Robert
made a final plea of innocence and asked Morocco's king to intervene on
his behalf. When the verdict was announced, he showed no visible reaction.
"I'm relieved that my client escaped
the death penalty," said lawyer Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, who argued
that there was a lack of material evidence against Robert.
Robert and 33 others on trial with
him were arrested in a crackdown following May 16 suicide bombings in Casablanca,
Morocco's largest city, that killed 45 people, including 12 bombers.
Two of Robert's co-defendants were
also sentenced to life in prison, and others received sentences of up to
30 years in prison. Two were acquitted.
Robert was found guilty of "undermining
state security" and "forming a criminal gang in relation with a terrorist
enterprise," among other charges.
His case was not directly related
to the five near-simultaneous bombings in Casablanca. Instead, he was accused
of trying to set up an underground Islamic network in northern Morocco
and start a bloody insurgency similar to the one in neighboring Algeria.
The 11-year Islamic insurgency there has left an estimated 120,000 people
dead.
Robert accused Moroccan security
services of fabricating the case against him and asked King Mohammed VI
to intervene. The king was in Paris on a private visit. The French man's
defense said that he would appeal to Morocco's highest court. Robert is
eligible to serve out his sentence in a French prison, in keeping with
a judicial agreement between the two countries.
The bombings in this normally peaceful
kingdom led to a massive investigation and the arrest of hundreds of suspected
extremists believed to be members, like Robert, of the clandestine Salafiya
Jihadia group.
