El Oued’s Criminal Court Discharges 15 Moroccans From Terrorist-Related Activities

The criminal Court of the judicial council of El Oued province (south-eastern Algeria), on Tuesday dealt with a case pertaining to suspected criminal and terrorist-related activities involving seventeen defendants now in custody, while three others are still on the run, including fifteen defendants holding Moroccan nationality.

The facts of the case go back to the last month of Ramadan, where fifteen Moroccans entered in two batches the national territory, the first one stopped over at Ouargla (southern Algeria) and but they were shortly arrested by security forces on charges of illegal immigration. They were later acquitted by a local tribunal but remained under judicial supervision.

The second batch of these Moroccans arrived for their part at the airport Houari Boumediene of Algiers and headed directly for the city of El Oued where to sought to get in touch with local smugglers asking them to help them cross to Italy through Libya, where a number of their relatives are settled.

Judicial sources stated that the defendants, who hail from the Moroccan regions of Beni Mellal, Oujda, and Marrakech, entered Algeria  with the aim of finding a job because of the stifling unemployment crisis now bedeviling the Kingdom of Morocco, especially as they have some proven experience in entrepreneurship, such as construction, agriculture and mechanics, and had thereby nothing to do with terrorism.