Morocco Issues 23 Death Sentences in 2019 for Violent Crimes

The accused were charged with aggravated crimes committed against adults and minors, reports Assabah. The report took into account these aggravating circumstances for cases of premeditated voluntary homicide, desecration of a corpse, multiplicity of victims, and the combination of murder with rape or indecent assault. According to the same source, the gap between the number of verdicts and the number of convicts can be justified by the fact that some accused are guilty of several crimes at once.

Among these death row inmates are four terrorists involved in the beheading of the two Scandinavian tourists in Imlil, near Marrakech. As for the other individuals sentenced to death, they are guilty of crimes combined with heinous acts such as voluntary homicide with rape, indecent assault, mutilation of the corpse, multiple victims, or the murder of members of the same family.

The same report specifies that 11 of the 23 death row inmates beheaded their victims, killed several members of the same family, or committed repeated crimes against children and relatives. Other death row inmates, on the other hand, raped or mutilated the bodies of their victims before killing them, whether they were women or children, concludes the same report.