A Moroccan, sentenced in France for his participation in a deadly attack in the tourist town of Marrakech in 1994, was handed over to the Moroccan authorities, we learned on October 29 from the General Directorate of National Security (GDNS) in Morocco, confirming information from our colleagues from the Republican Echo.
An ex-terrorist under surveillance
Abdelilah Ziyad, known as “Rachid”, 63 years old, had lived for more than fifteen years in Chartres, where he was placed under close judicial surveillance. He “was expelled Wednesday from France and presented before an investigating judge,” an official of the DGSN told AFP, without specifying the charges against him. According to the sources of the Echo, the man was also a mentor of Ismail Mostefaï, one of the terrorists of the Bataclan.
The 60-year-old Moroccan was sentenced in January 1997 by a French court to eight years in prison for having ordered a bomb attack against the luxury hotel Atlas-Asni in Marrakech in which two Spanish tourists died on August 24, 1994. Moroccan justice, for its part, condemned him to the death penalty, then commuted him to 25 years of imprisonment.
The “emir” of one of the first terrorist networks established in France
This attack – the first of its kind on Moroccan soil – had caused a serious crisis between Rabat and Algiers. Following the attack, which the Moroccans attributed to the Algerian secret services, Rabat introduced a compulsory visa for Algerian visitors. In retaliation, Algeria decided to close its land border with Morocco.
Activist of the Moroccan Islamist Youth Movement (MJIM), an opposition group, Abdelilah Ziyad was considered the “emir” of the “Marrakech network“, made up of around thirty members, one of the first organized Islamist terrorist networks in France, in the Paris region and around Orléans.
During the network’s trial in Paris, he admitted to being the recruiter, organizer, and orderer of the terrorist group recruited with the aim of carrying the “holy war” to Morocco during the summer of 1994.
