Moroccan Court Doubles Sentence in Hate Crime Murder of Gay Man

The Court of Appeal of Meknes sentenced the young man, accused of premeditated voluntary manslaughter, to 10 years in prison, double the sentence he had received at first instance, reports the daily Assabah. A few months ago, the victim, M. H., was found dead at his home in the Salam Sidi Saïd neighborhood, the police report states that he was stabbed in the neck and chest.

The word "homosexual" written by the author of the crime on a wall with the victim’s blood, allowed the judicial police investigators to identify and arrest the suspect, after the scientific police collected and analyzed his fingerprints left on the wall. The young man, originally from Fez, confessed to the facts during his interrogation.

He recounts that he was approached by the victim at the Sidi Saïd station. She convinced him to accompany her to her home to have a few drinks together. The victim, after having consumed a few alcoholic drinks, would have proposed to him to have sexual relations with him, which he would have refused. But, according to his confessions, the victim would have insisted so much that he had to go get a knife from the kitchen to stab him to death.

The defendant had confirmed his confessions before the investigating judge. Several neighbors of the victim also confirmed to the police the homosexual and alcoholic tendencies of the latter, during the preliminary investigation. These testimonies probably led the judge to be more lenient at first instance and sentence the defendant to five years in prison. The appeal judge considered the crime to be serious enough and doubled the sentence to 10 years in prison.