Morocco court sentences man to capital punishment for assassinating MP
Xinhua,January 16, 2018 Adjust font size:
RABAT, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Morocco's Casablanca appeal court has sentenced a man to capital punishment over the assassination of a Moroccan lawmaker, official MAP news agency reported on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, three other convicts were given jail terms from 20 years to life imprisonment, the report said.
The main defendant, Hicham Al Mouchtari, who is an elected member of a local municipal councilor and is charged with "intentional and premeditated murder and hiding a person that he knew had committed a crime, is sentenced to death," the same source pointed out.
Last March, the 53-year-old Abdellatif Merdas, a politician with the liberal Constitutional Union party, was gunned down near his home in the economic city of Casablanca.
The trial revealed an affair between the main convict and the victim's widow and family disputes.
The court sentenced the victim's widow to life imprisonment, and nephew of the municipal councilor to 30 years in prison, the source noted.
The court also sentenced the fourth convict known as "soothsayer," to 20 years in jail.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Morocco, but the North African kingdom has stopped applying it since 1993. Enditem