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Nine convicted bombers tunnel out of Moroccan jail

Nine Islamic extremists convicted for the Casablanca bombings that killed 45 people in 2003, including one facing the death sentence, tunneled their way out of a Moroccan prison early on Monday, officials said.

The Kenitra “prison administration noted the escape Monday morning and all measures have been taken to find the escaped prisoners and establish who was responsible,” the justice ministry said in a statement quoted by the MAP state news agency.

The Casablanca bombings were Morocco’s deadliest ever, killing 45 — including 12 suicide bombers — and injuring scores more.

An official representing a prisoners’ welfare group said the fugitives had escaped from Kenitra prison north of Rabat after dawn prayers at 5:30am.

Abderrahim Mahtade, president of the Annasir association, said one of the nine had been sentenced to death, six others to life imprisonment and two were given 20 years in jail. All were from Casablanca.

Describing how the nine had tunneled their way out, an interior ministry source said that details had been released to help the search. Border guards had been placed on alert.

Mahtade said they had left a letter describing themselves as the victims of an injustice and explaining that having tried all legal avenues in vain, they were left with one option.

“We assume responsibility for our actions and there should be no search for accomplices among detainees or in the prison administration,” Mahtade quoted the letter as saying. “We will hurt nobody, but we are glad to get our beloved freedom back.”

Meanwhile, a Moroccan suspected of making bombs for the attacks in Casablanca and the 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people appeared before a tribunal last week.

Saad Houssaini, 38, is suspected of “threatening internal security” and forming a criminal gang with a view to prepare and carry out terrorist acts, MAP reported, quoting a judicial source.

Arrested in Casablanca last year, Houssaini appeared before the court in Sale south of Rabat with 18 fellow defendants, but the tribunal adjourned the case until next month.

The court in Sale has begun trying 51 other suspects in more than half a dozen suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca in March and April last year, after jailing three youths last month for complicity.

Those bombings killed a policeman and injured several people in working class parts of the city.

Many of an estimated total of more than 900 Islamic extremists detained in various Moroccan prisons went on a 24-hour hunger strike on Monday in protest against their conditions.
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