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Death sentence for Al-Qaeda youths in Mauritania French killings
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Death sentence for Al-Qaeda youths in Mauritania French killings
AFP - Wednesday, May 26
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NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - – A Mauritanian court sentenced three Al-Qaeda members to death on Tuesday for the 2007 murder of four French tourists, who responded with threats against France and its president.
Mohamed Ould Chabarnou, 29, Maarouf Ould Haiba, 28, and Sidi Ould Sidna, 22, had pleaded not guilty to the murders -- which shocked the visitor-friendly nation -- but presented themselves as "soldiers of Al-Qaeda".
"The court has decided to sentence to death Mohamed Ould Chabarnou, Maarouf Ould Haiba and Sidi Ould Sidna," court president Ould Khaya said in Arabic as he read out the verdict.
Cries of "Allah Akbar" (God is great) rang out in the courtroom as the three shouted threats against French nationals and President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"Our death sentence means the death sentence of all the French in Mauritania and even beyond, to Afghanistan," Sidna shouted in Arabic.
"Between us and Sarkozy of France, this is the sword," Chabarnou said, in an apparent reference to the sentence.
Haiba made a veiled threat about the fate of 78-year-old Frenchman Michel Germaneau kidnapped in Niger on April 19.
"The French hostage kidnapped in Niger ... will of course need freedom, and air to breathe," he said.
The three men were accused of shooting five French tourists on December 24, 2007 near the city of Aleg in southern Mauritania.
Only one man survived the cold-blooded attack, a man in his seventies who lost two of his sons, his brother and a friend of the family.
The accused acknowledged during the trial that they had been "trained in camps" of Al-Qaeda, but denied they killed the tourists.
On Monday defence lawyers asked for an acquittal, arguing that alleged confessions had been obtained under torture.
Prosecutors in response sought the death sentence, which has not been applied since the 1987 execution of three officers sentenced for attempting to overthrow the government of Maaouiya Ould Taya.
The court president and his two assessors deliberated for several hours before delivering the sentences.
"The verdict surprised us," one of the defense advocates, Zaim Ould Hemed Vall, told AFP, adding that "the prosecution had not provided any proof of the responsibility of those sentenced to death."
The death of the French tourists shook the country, which had a reputation of warmly welcoming visitors.
A few days afterwards the Paris-Dakar motor rally, which passes through the Saharan nation, was cancelled just before it was due to begin.
The three men had been accused of criminal association, belonging to an armed gang that carried out murders and terrorist attacks against citizens of a foreign country.
The court is trying a total of 12 Mauritanian men in connection with the murders, two in their absence because they are on the run.
Since the shootings of the French tourists, usually peaceful Mauritania has been subjected to several attacks, killings and kidnappings claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Ould Sidna and Ould Chabarnou were arrested in January 2008 in the west African country of Guinea-Bissau with the help of French intelligence.
Ould Haiba was detained shortly after in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott.
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