Moroccan ex-inmates demand probe into Casablanca blasts

Rabat (AFP) - Former Moroccan Salafist prisoners protested on Monday outside parliament to demand the reopening of an investigation into bombings in Casablanca in 2003, and accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities".

Some 150 former prisoners and their families answered a call by the "joint committee for the defence of Islamist detainees" to demand that the probe into the bombings that they called "the biggest lie Moroccans have ever known".

Salafists adhere to a strict Sunni interpretation of Islam.

Monday's demonstration comes 13 years to the day after the wave of suicide bombings in the country's commercial capital killed 33 people.

In the wake of the attacks, the authorities arrested more than 8,000 people and more than 1,000 were later sentenced, including 17 given the death penalty.

"We demand a transparent and impartial investigation into the events of May 16, 2003," committee coordinator Osama Boutahir told AFP.

"We ask Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane to meet this demand that he himself expressed while in opposition."

Some who attended the protest accused the government of "shirking its responsibilities" towards the former prisoners.

Other Moroccans convicted after the attacks are still languishing in jail.

"We are still waiting for our husbands and sons to be released," some of whom are in prisons hundreds of kilometres (miles) from their families, a spokesman for the committee said.