9 Jihadis Convicted For 2003 Casablanca Bombings Escape Prison
Pictured above: (L)Casa Espana Restaurant and (R) Hotel Farah the morning after the bombings.
The 2003 Casablanca bombings were a series of suicide bombings on May 16, 2003, in Casablanca, Morocco. The attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country’s history.
There were in all 14 bombers, most between 20 and 24 years old, who bombed several places on the night of May the 16th. In the deadliest attack, bombers wearing explosives knifed a guard at the “Casa de España” restaurant, a Spanish-owned eatery in the city. They blew themselves inside the building, killing 20 people, many of them dining and playing bingo.
The five-star Hotel Farah was bombed next, killing a guard and a porter. Another bomber killed three passersby as he attempted to bomb a Jewish cemetery. He was 150 yards away from the cemetery and likely lost, so he blew up by a fountain. Two additional bombers attacked a Jewish community center, but killed no one because the building was closed and empty. It would have been packed the next day.
Another bomber attacked a Jewish-owned Italian restaurant, and another blew up near the Belgian consulate which is located meters away from the restaurant, killing two police officers.
In all, 12 bombers died, along with 33 civilians. Two bombers were arrested before they could carry out attacks. More than 100 people were injured. Eight of the dead were Europeans (three Spanish among them) and the rest were Moroccan.
The 9 who escaped today were all convicted of having links to or being caught before they could carry out the Moroccan bombings. They are also believed to have links to the Madrid bombings in 2004.
The suicide bombers came from the Salafia Jihadia group who are affiliated with Al Qaeda and spread terror in North Africa and Spain.
Now they have escaped:
RABAT - Nine radical Islamists jailed for their links to the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings that killed 45 people broke out of a Moroccan top security jail on Monday, the Justice Ministry said.
The nine men escaped from Kenitra prison, 40 km (25 miles) east of Rabat, the ministry said.
“All the measures have been taken to arrest the escaped detainees,” it added in a statement, saying authorities were investigating how the prisoners broke free.
A security source told Reuters the prisoners escaped through a tunnel they dug out under their cells.
“They literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel in the early hours today,” the source said.
The escaped prisoners left a five-line letter, saying their breakout was the only solution to what they called injustice.
Islamist prisoner rights advocacy group Ennassir said the jailbreak coincided with the beginning of a one-day hunger strike by about 1,000 Islamist prisoners held at several prisons across Morocco, including Kenitra’s.
“Most of the escaped prisoners had been sentenced to life imprisonment late in 2003 for their links with 2003’s Casablanca bombings. It is the first such jailbreak,” Ennassir chairman Abderrahim Mohtad told Reuters.
Mohtad said the Islamist prisoners were fasting on Monday to protest against what they called mistreatment and repression by prison officials. Authorities were not immediately available to comment on the prisoner allegations.
The prisoners said in the short letter, of which Reuters obtained a copy: “No to injustice. We had tried every way to end this injustice and we knocked on all doors for that without result. The only way left for us is to do that (breakout). We hope that you will understand.
“We apologize for the disturbance we have caused. That was the only solution,” added the letter written in tentative Arabic and with the name of the nine prisoners.
Morocco’s prisons are overcrowded and squalid and most of the 60,000 prisoners complain of lack of decent food and access to healthcare, human rights groups say.
Islamist detainees want to be given “political prisoner status” which would allow them better conditions.
(Reuters)
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Sorry … just giving you video feed of my initial reaction to this one.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:28 amdo we know why they keep escaping? because we are so fucking nice in our jails. Prisons start to look like luxury resorts, which means too much freedom and a better chance for them to excape.
April 8th, 2008 at 6:05 am