03/08/2007
Morocco's anti-terror court in Sale began the preliminary hearings of nine defendants suspected to have tried to join al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria, AFP quoted judicial sources as saying Thursday (August 2nd). The nine suspects are from Oujda, Nador and Fès, and were arrested in Oujda and M’Hamid El Ghizlane, at the Algerian-Moroccan border after the Interior Ministry raised the terrorism alert in the country to maximum. The suspects have been charged with "setting up a criminal gang in order to prepare and carry out terrorist acts", "holding unauthorised public meetings", "belonging to an unrecognised association" and "attempting illegal immigration".