The case of the murder of a French tourist in Morocco has just taken a new turn. This Wednesday evening, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) announced in a press release the opening of an investigation for “assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise” after the Saturday murder of a French tourist in Tiznit in southern Morocco.
This 79-year-old French national was killed in a Tiznit market with a knife. She lived in a campsite near this small town. A 31-year-old suspect was arrested the same day in Agadir, just a few kilometers from the crime scene. Monday evening already, the Moroccan prosecutor’s office had entrusted the investigation to the anti-terrorist police, suspecting “a terrorist motive for the crime”, said a source close to the investigation on Monday evening. He is also suspected of having committed an assassination attemptof a Belgian in Agadir, the Moroccan police revealed on Saturday. The Belgian national, injured and hospitalized, is now out of danger.
Police also say the suspect, now under terrorism investigation, was previously admitted to a psychiatric hospital “from September 25 to October 25, 2021”.
“Vigilance”
“The investigations were entrusted to the General Directorate of Internal Security, to the anti-terrorist sub-directorate of the central directorate of the judicial police and to the central directorate of the judicial police”, specified the Pnat.
Following the announcement of the murder on Saturday, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a message on the website of the French Embassy in Morocco for travellers. It is theirs “recommended to be vigilant in all public places and when traveling in Morocco”.
In recent years, the kingdom has been spared violence linked to various jihadist groups. But at the end of 2018, the country was the scene of a particularly violent attack against two Scandinavian tourists, beheaded in the name of IS in the High Atlas mountains (South). After a well-attended trial, the defendants were sentenced to the death penalty, not applied in Morocco since 1993. Since 2002, the Moroccan police have dismantled more than 2,000 terrorist cells and arrested more than 3,500 people in matters relating to theterrorism“, according to data communicated in 2021 by the BCIJ.