Moroccan Court hands two Dutch citizens death penalty
Two Dutch citizens have been sentenced to death over the accidental killing of a medical student in 2017.
The Dutch citizens, Edwin Gabriel Robles Martinez and Shardyone Girigorio Semerel,two years ago, allegedly opened fire on a cafe in the tourist hub of Marrkesh.
They had apparently been aiming at the cafe’s owner, but ended up killing the student and wounding two other people, local media reported .
At the time local officials said the shooting was a “settling of accounts”that was ” directly linked to a criminal network which has ramifications in some European countries”.
On Friday a court sentenced to jail 15 other suspects in the same case, handing them terms ranging between three and 20 years for setting up a “criminal gang”, lawyer Abdellatif Htitech told AFP.
Among those convicted was the cafe’s owner, who received a 15 years prison sentence for “drug trafficking”, said Mr Htitech, who represents the family of the medical student .
A spokeswoman for the foreign ministry in the Netherlands said the Dutch embassy “is in direct contact with the lawyer”.
Asked if the Netherlands would intervene,Annemijn van den Broek said it was up to those convicted to decide whether or not to appeal .
She said the Netherlands was opposed to the death penalty .
Morocco – which last issued a death sentence earlier this month against three ISIS supporters over the beheading of two Scandinavian tourists – has had a defacto freeze on executions since 1993.
AFP
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