More arrests in Morocco backpacker beheadings, investigators say
FOX NEWS - Moroccan authorities announced Wednesday that more suspects were arrested in connection with the Islamic State-inspired murders of two Scandinavian hikers in the High Atlas Mountains, bringing the total number to 19.
A Moroccan government spokesman says 10 new suspects were arrested over the last two days for their links with the alleged killers of 24-year-old Louisa Vesterager Jespersen of Denmark and 28-year-old Maren Ueland of Norway.
The two women were found dead on Dec. 17 in their camping tent in a remote area of the Atlas Mountains. The tourists were stabbed multiple times before the murderers slit their throats and decapitated them.
The alleged ringleader of the horrific murders, Abdessamad Ejjoud, 25, was arrested Tuesday. Abdelhak Khiam, the head of the country's central office for judicial investigation, told Agence France-Presse that Ejjoud had “formed a kind of cell that discussed how to carry out a terrorist act inside the kingdom … targeting the security services or foreign tourists.”
Among the 19 arrested, Khaim said three had terrorism-related criminal records.