RABAT: A Moroccan jailed by France in 1997 for a deadly attack in Marrakech has been handed back to authorities in the North African kingdom, an official in Rabat said Friday.
Abdelilah Ziyad “was expelled on Wednesday from France and brought before a judge” in Morocco, an official from the DGSN security service told AFP without giving details of any further charges.
Press say that Ziyad was sentenced in absentia in 1984 to prison over unspecified criminal charges, but had been released due to a statute of limitations.
It was not possible to immediately confirm these reports.
In January 1997, Ziyad was sentenced to eight years in jail by a French court for terrorist conspiracy after admitting during his trial that he had organized an August 1994 attack on a Marrakesh hotel in which two Spanish tourists were killed.
The attack, the first of its kind on Moroccan soil, sparked a crisis between Morocco and Algeria, as Rabat accused Algerian secret services of being behind it.
Morocco slapped visa restrictions on Algerians and Algeria responded by closing the regional rivals’ shared border — which remains closed to this day.
Ziyad, known as “Rachid,” was ordered banned from French territory for 10 years after serving his sentence.
Court president Bruno Steinmann said Ziyad had advocated violent Islamism and had learned how to handle arms and explosives during visits to Libya, Algeria and Afghanistan.
According to details revealed during his 1996 trial, Ziyad had been living illegally in France and become the leader of a 30-strong network of Islamist militants in the French city of Orleans, south of Paris.
He admitted to recruiting, organizing and giving orders for the 1994 attack.