Houcine Bachir Brahim, a 27-year-old pro-Polisario student and activist, was sentenced, Tuesday, to twelve years in prison by the Marrakech Appeal court. The judges found Brahim guilty of killing Amazigh student Omar Khaleq, also known as Izem, during violent clashes between Sahrawi and Amazigh students at the Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech in 2016. According to El Espanol, Houcine Bachir Brahim fled, in January, to the Canary Islands, where he applied for political asylum. Once there, Brahim was sent back to Morocco. «His lawyers insisted that he was arrested following a police report that includes statements that have not been signed. There are no witnesses, no recordings, and no objective evidence», Ana Sebastian Gascon, a lawyer who attended the trial as an international observer, told El Espanol. According to the same source, pro-Polisario news platform Equipe Media claims that Brahim was allegedly tried because of his political activism. El Espanol indicates that the student «participated in protests carrying the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)» and «defended the self-determination of the Saharawi people».
