Morocco Convicts Hizb Ut-Tahrir Members

A Casablanca court on Tuesday (June 5th) handed down convictions against two of three defendants on trial for supporting the banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Court of First Instance sentenced the main defendant in the case, Danish-Moroccan Thami Najim, to ten months, giving another ten months to Fouad Said, who served a similar sentence in Tunisia. It also fined them 3,000 dirhams each. It acquitted the third defendant, Mounir Darouri, a single man training at a programming company in Casablanca.

The three were arrested in February on accusations of promoting the banned Islamist party, classified as a terrorist group by Morocco, as well as inciting sedition and seeking to impose a caliphate.

In his address to the jury, defendant Thami Najim said that the judges should be a fortification and solid door to Islam.

"I did not shed the blood of the people, nor their wealth, nor their honour. And I did not hurt anyone because of my commitment to Islam, so why am I charged with subversion?” Najim said. (...)