Death row inmate involved in the 2018 terrorist attack commits suicide

The Oujda local prison’s administration announced that a death row inmate involved in the 2018 terrorist attack involving killing two tourists in the Chamharouch mountain site, committed suicide in prison.

The inmate used “a piece of cloth that he ripped from his clothes and tied it to the window of the room in which he was staying.”

The case dates back to 2018, when two tourists, Maren Ueland, aged 28 years, of Norway, and Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, aged 24 years, of Denmark, who were camping, were discovered beheaded on December 17 in the high Atlas mounatin.

When the tragedy first took place, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said the killings were “politically motivated and thus an act of terror.”

The General Directorate for Prisons did not specify in it’s statement which one among Abdessamad Ejjoud, Younes Ouaziyad and Rachid Afatti, committed suicide.

But, the prosecutors and the inmate’s family had been immediately informed, said the body’s statement.

The killing was captured on the murderers’ cell phones, which is what made this case so horrifying.

In a letter read aloud in court during the trial that took place in Sale, Jespersen’s mother, Helle Petersen, said that the ‘beasts’ deserve the death penalty because it was the only thing that was fair in this circumstance.

Ejjoud, one of the murderers, was an Emam. He admitted to the killings and that the victims had been beheaded throughout the trial.

According to previous French media reports, Ejjoud was imprisoned in Morocco for trying to join the Islamic State organization in Syria and was released in 2015.

Affati, the second killer, was in charge of documenting the horrific act.

Due of its terrifying content, the video later went viral and created huge disturbance in Morocco as well as the rest of the world.

Although the Islamic group has not claimed responsibility for the killings, the three men all claimed to be supporters of ISIS.

Kevin Zoller Guervos, a Spanish-Swiss convert to Islam who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for “joining a terrorist group,” was the only non-Moroccan convict in the case. 

He was accused of training the three men and teaching them how to use an encrypted messaging service and how to use weapons, according AFP.

The same indicated that the court rejected the Jespersen family’s plea for 10 million dirhams in compensation from the Moroccan government for its “moral responsibility,” however the three individuals who were found guilty were sentenced to pay 2 million dirhams as compensation.