One of Nine Escaped Islamists Prisoners Nabbed in Morocco

The Moroccan authorities on Thursday announced they arrested one of nine Islamists that broke away from the Kenitra jail (45 km north of Rabat) on 7 April. The authorities also arrested the two accomplices that harbored the prisoner, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The officials have so far remained tight-lipped on the circumstances of the haul, which comes two days after a new penitentiary administration boss was appointed.

The eight runaway Islamists at large were sentenced to from 20 years’ imprisonment to death penalty, shortly after the 16 May 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca that killed 45 people, among them 12 suicide bombers.

Authorities have since stepped up arrests and burst some fifty terrorist plans involving a thousand Islamists now serving their sentences in Moroccan prisons.

The escape, Morocco’s most dramatic in the past twenty years, forced the authorities to beef up security in various detention centers hosting some 57,000 inmates, including 2000 arrested since the beginning of the year.

The government plans to recruit 6,000 prison guards by 2012, with the current number being about one guard per 11 inmates.

Source African Press Agency

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