Men, accused in the killing of a Danish and Norwegian hikers in the Atlas mountains near Marrakech last December, are seen inside a car after leaving the courtroom in Sale, near Rabat, Morocco, July 18, 2019. Reuters/Youssef Boudlal
SALE, Morocco: A Moroccan court has convicted on terror charges the three main defendants in the trial over the brutal slaying of two Scandinavian women hiking in the Atlas Mountains, and sentenced them to death.
A fourth suspect who fled the scene was given life in prison.
After several hours of deliberation, the court handed 19 accomplices jail terms ranging from five to 30 years.
None of the men reacted as the sentences were read out, but families of those convicted rushed out of the crowded courtroom crying.
Maren Ueland, 28, from Norway, and Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, from Denmark, were knifed to death in December. The slayings were recorded on video and posted online.
The men claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group.
All 23 addressed the court ahead of the verdicts, most begging for leniency. The main defendants asked Allah for forgiveness. Jounes Ouzayed and Rashid Afatti, are carpenters while Abdessamad Al Joud is a street merchant. The man who fled the murder scene is Khaiali Abderahman.
In his closing arguments in June, the prosecutor asked the court to sentence the top suspects to death, and described the three main defendants as "human beasts."
A Swiss man, Kevin Zoller, among the accomplices, received a 20-year sentence.
The lawyer for Vesterager's family said he was "100% satisfied" with the verdicts. Khalid El Fataoui noted that Louisa Vesterager's mother had asked the court in a letter at an earlier hearing this month to sentence the killers to death.
"We obtained what she asked for."
