Arrestan a tres yihadistas por el asesinato en Casablanca de un policía
Moroccan police on Wednesday arrested three suspected terrorists loyal to Islamic State for the murder earlier this month in Casablanca of a traffic policeman who was wounded during his night shift, robbed of his vehicle and gun and then burned his body.
Two of the suspected terrorists were arrested in Casablanca and the third in Sidi Harazem, on the outskirts of the city of Fez, and all three had recently sworn allegiance to the Islamic State and "were determined to participate in a local terrorist project", the Moroccan General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) said in a statement on Wednesday.
The arrests took place early this morning in an operation by the Casablanca Judicial Police in coordination with the Directorate General of Territorial Surveillance (DGST, Moroccan internal intelligence) and two of those arrested are charged with the murder, which according to official sources consulted by EFE took place at the beginning of this month.
The objective of those arrested was to kill an agent and seize his weapon in order to rob a bank, the location of which they had already planned, with the aim of taking the bank's money, according to the source.
One of those arrested in Casablanca and the one in Fez are the ones who carried out the murder of the policeman, who was ambushed while he was working on a road at night, after which he was wounded with bladed weapons, according to the DGSN.
They also stole his gun and car and then burned his body in a field, the statement explains, adding that these two persons coordinated with the third detainee, who "had the same extremist plans" as them, to hide evidence by setting fire to the victim's car.
In the searches carried out during the police operation, the agents seized the bladed weapons used in the crime and recovered the handcuffs and the gun of the murdered agent, which was hidden in a safe place in Casablanca to be used in their next attack, the statement said.
The suspects remain in police custody and the corresponding prosecutor's office is investigating their possible links to international terrorist cells or organisations, as well as trying to identify others possibly involved.
The policeman's body was found on 2 March burnt in a sewage canal in the town of Had Soualem, on the outskirts of Casablanca, after disappearing a day earlier from his work, Moroccan media reported at the time.
The murder then caused social commotion and was widely commented on social networks, where Moroccans showed their solidarity for the death of the officer.
