The appeal trial of the 24 convicts implicated in the murder of two Scandinavian tourists in the Imlil region in El Haouz province resumed, on Wednesday, in the Criminal Chamber in charge of terrorism cases at the annex of the Salé Appeal Court. This second hearing was meant to go through preliminary petitions, which will be examined at the next hearing scheduled on September 18. Khalid Fettaoui, lawyer of the family of Danish victim Louisa Vesterager, explained that the Court decided at this public hearing to postpone the examining of preliminary petitions and to rule on them after the hearing of the rest of the suspects. He reiterates his request to have the court summon Mustapha Ramid, the current Minister of State for Human Rights and Mohamed Maghraoui, the Salafist Sheikh who chairs the «Association for Preaching in the Qur'an and Sunnah». The latter runs Koranic schools attended by the main defendants in this case. Last June, the court rejected the same request by Fettaoui. For the record, in July, the same court sentenced, at first instance, the 24 individuals prosecuted in this case to sentences ranging from five years in prison to the death penalty.
