Counter-terrorism authorities in Morocco said a dual Swiss-Spanish national has been arrested for alleged involvement in the killing of two Scandinavian tourists.
The man, who has not been named, was detained in Marrakesh for allegedly trying to recruit Moroccans to commit acts of terror, the Central Bureau for Judicial Investigations (BCIJ) said in a statement on Dec. 29.
The bodies of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, from Denmark, and Maren Ueland, 28, from Norway, were found early on Dec. 17 near the village of Imlil in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.
Investigators are treating the killings as an act of terror.
Recruitment For ‘Terrorist Plots’
Officials at BCIJ accuse the arrested Swiss-Spanish national of “involvement in recruiting Moroccan and sub-Saharan nationals to carry out terrorist plots in Morocco against foreign targets and security forces in order to take hold of their service weapons.”‘Lone Wolves’
Nineteen other men have been arrested in connection with the case, including four main suspects who had pledged allegiance to the ISIS terrorist group in a video made three days before the tourists’ bodies were found.There was another video in which the four initial suspects appeared to be pledging their allegiance to ISIS.
Police and domestic intelligence spokesman Boubker Sabik this week described the four men as “lone wolves,” adding “the crime was not coordinated with [ISIS].”
Slain In Their Tents
Both Jespersen and Ueland had lived in southern Norway where they attended university.Helle Jespersen, one of the women’s mother, said she urged her daughter not to go to Morocco.
“Three homeless men came from Marrakech and pitched a tent right next to the girls’ tent,” a hotelier was quoted as saying. “The men were not from around here.”
‘We Must Not Give In’
Denmark’s prime minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, said on Dec. 20 that the slayings can be considered “politically motivated and thus an act of terror.”“There are still dark forces that want to fight our values” and, “we must not give in,” he said.
Morocco is generally considered safe for tourists but has battled with Islamic extremism for years. More than a thousand Moroccans are believed to have joined ISIS.
The victims have been commemorated in a series of vigils.
In Morocco’s capital Rabat, a minute’s silence was held on Dec. 22 with Danish and Norwegian diplomats present, while hundreds more people attended a vigil in the village, near where the women’s bodies were found.
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