The arrest of three suspected terrorists involved in the murder of a policeman on duty (DGSN)

On Mar 15, 2023

Elements of the State Department of Judicial Police in Casablanca, in close coordination with the National Division of Judicial Police and the General Directorate for the Surveillance of the National Territory, succeeded in arresting, in the early hours of Wednesday, March 15, three extremists loyal to the “Daesh terrorist organization”, suspected of involvement in the commission of premeditated murder in the framework of a terrorist project, the victim of which was a policeman on duty.

Security operations initiated by regional intervention teams, under the supervision of judicial police officers in charge of the search, led to the arrest of the two main suspects in simultaneous operations both in the city of Casablanca and in the “Sidi Harazem” area on the outskirts of Fez, before the third suspect was arrested in a subsequent operation in Casablanca.

Preliminary information from the investigation indicates that the suspects had recently declared their “allegiance” to the alleged emir of the terrorist organization “Daesh”, and decided to engage in a domestic terrorist project to seriously undermine public order, where they decided to target a security guard to physically eliminate him and seize his functional weapon, to commit a crime of robbery on a bank branch, the location of which was determined in advance and agreed on the method of breaking, to collect the financial proceeds of this criminal act.

The research and investigations carried out up to this stage of the search confirmed that the first and second suspects were responsible for the physical execution of the murder and the representation of the body of the victim police officer, after having staked out his place of work in a road service during his night shift, and subjected him to physical aggression with a knife, before stealing his car and his official weapon and setting fire to his body in an area of the village.

The leads also indicated that the two suspects coordinated with the third suspect, who had the same extremist agenda, to change the contours of the crime and erase the evidence by deliberately setting fire to the victim’s police car.

The technical investigations and inspection procedures carried out, in this case, led to the seizure of the bladed weapons used to commit the crime and the recovery of the handcuffs and the functional weapon of the deceased police officer, which was hidden in a safe place in the city of Casablanca, for use in carrying out their terrorist plans.

The suspects were kept in theoretical custody as part of the judicial investigation entrusted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office supervising the investigation to the Central Judicial Investigation Bureau of the General Directorate for National Territorial Control, to monitor any possible links to this terrorist act with international organizations.