Swiss Newspaper Challenges Moroccan Police Account in Imlil Tourist Murders Case

The title of Le Temps says a lot: "And if the Swiss accused of jihadism in Morocco was not a terrorist at all?" and then continues with what looks very much like a conspiracy theory: "The profile of Kevin Z., accused by the Moroccan authorities of being one of the instigators of the murder of two Scandinavian tourists in December, does not fit well with that of an Islamic State jihadist. Switzerland is conducting its own investigation into its national."

Letemps.CH cites Fatima, the Moroccan wife of Kevin Zoller, the 25-year-old Spanish-Swiss. According to her, the accusations against her husband are either a judicial error or a pure and simple plot. She declares: "We left for a week to Geneva, just before Christmas, to meet my mother-in-law, with whom we live. If he had been involved in a criminal case, he had no reason to return to Morocco to risk being arrested." She would have kept reservations, receipts and vouchers attesting to the dates of their trip to Switzerland.

The Swiss newspaper also specifies that the Moroccan authorities have stopped communicating on the elements of the investigation since the case has come under the jurisdiction of the courts. Le Temps does not mince words: "More precisely, according to the investigation of the BCIJ police services, he would have trained the four terrorists in the handling of weapons, would have provided them with the encrypted Telegram messaging, and would have tried to recruit sub-Saharan nationals for the gang. But instead of weapons, it would rather be paintball. As for the new recruits, it would be a Cameroonian friend. Finally, Telegram is easily accessible to everyone."

Let us recall that the student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and her Norwegian friend Maren Ueland, 28, were killed in the Imlil region south of Marrakech, on the night of December 16 to 17. Kevin Zoller, accused of "Forming a gang with a view to preparing and committing terrorist acts seriously undermining the security of the State, premeditated assistance to perpetrators of terrorist acts, training of persons with a view to joining a terrorist organization and apology for terrorism", faces up to 30 years in prison.