Morocco Ordered to Pay $500,000 in Damages for 2018 Imlil Terror Attack

The State’s no-fault liability is engaged in the two terrorist murders, the judge ruled in his decision handed down on June 16, in response to the petition filed by the heirs of the Danish Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, one of the two victims. The heirs of the Norwegian victim, for their part, did not initiate any action for compensation.

To read: Morocco’s High Court Upholds Death Sentences in Scandinavian Tourists’ Murder Case

For this "no-fault" liability based on the principle of national solidarity, the State will have to pay 5 million dirhams in damages to the heirs of the Danish victim who had claimed 10 million dirhams in 2019, during the criminal trial at the anti-terrorism court in Salé (annex of the Court of Appeal of Rabat).

The two victims, a Dane (Louisa Vesterager Jespersen) and a Norwegian, (Maren Ueland), had been savagely beheaded in December 2018 in the Imlil region by individuals who had been arrested a few days later. On July 18, 2019, the Salé court had sentenced the 4 alleged perpetrators to the death penalty and ordered them to pay jointly 2 million dirhams to the heirs of the Norwegian victim, Maren Ueland, as compensation for the damage suffered. The decision was upheld by the Court of Cassation, which however rejected the compensation claim filed by the lawyers of the Danish victim against the Moroccan State.