Sunday, April 29, 2012

Doves released on first anniversary of Marrakech bombing




With tears in their eyes friends and families of the victims of the Marrakech bombing said they "condemn hatred" and called for the "fight against this barbarity to continue", at a memorial ceremony held yesterday.

To mark the first anniversary yesterday of the terrorist bombing that killed seventeen people in Café Argana, in Marrakech’s Jmaa el Fna square, a dove was released for each of the deceased; eight French tourists, two Canadians, two Moroccans, one Briton, one Dutchman, a Portuguese, Russian and Swiss national.

The ceremony began with a distribution of roses and John Lennon's song ‘Imagine’ as background music. A monument with the names of those killed at the Argana and a freshly planted olive tree will remember the 17 victims. Moroccan Interior Minister Mustapha Ramid read a message from King Mohammed VI, who "firmly condemned appalling terrorism... which is opposed to the values of tolerance taught by Islam".

The April 28, 2011 bombing was the first such attack in Morocco in eight years and deeply affected the country's tourist industry.

On March 9 a Moroccan appeal court confirmed the death sentence against Adil Al-Atmani, the mastermind of the attack that killed 17 people, and handed a death sentence to his chief accomplice Hakim Dah, one of the others convicted.


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