Three suspected terrorists who murdered two Scandinavian hikers last December could face the death penalty in Morocco.
Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and Norwegian Maren Ueland, 28, were brutally murdered at the base of the highest mountain in North Africa, Toubkal, near Marrakesh.
Louisa and Maren, who went to the same university and shared a room together, were camping in the Atlas mountains, in Morocco, for their Christmas holidays.
They were found with their throats slit at the base of the mountain.
Abdessamad Ejjoud, 25, and fellow killer Younes Ouaziyad, 27, admitted brutally murdering Louisa and Maren while Rachid Afatti, 33, filmed the beheadings on his phone.
Prosecutors have now asked for the death penalty for the suspected Jihadists, who had sworn allegiance to ISIS, the Daily Mail reports.
Prosecutors are seeking the maximum penalty for the men but Morocco has had a freeze on executions since 1993.
They also want jail terms of between 15 years and life for the 21 other defendants.
All but three of those on trial said they were ISIS supporters, the prosecution said.
Prosecutors said the three murderers were "bloodthirsty monsters".
They added that a post-mortem found 23 injuries on Louisa's decapitated body and seven on Maren's.
Abdessamad Ejjoud, 25, said he regretted butchering one of the hikers, although he claimed her friend was killed by his comrade Younes Ouaziyad.
Lawyers for Louisa's family said on Thursday that the movements of the three suspects had not been adequately monitored by the authorities.
They said the girls' lives could have been saved if they acted on information relating to former street vendor Ejjoud.
Ejjoud, the alleged ringleader, had been convicted of trying to join ISIS in Syria and was released in 2015.
He had met with former inmates and others without proper checks and police had failed to act when alerted to his activities, lawyer Khaled El Fataoui said.
ISIS has never claimed responsibility for the murders and Morocco's anti-terror chief insisted the accused had no contact with the jihadist group in conflict zones.
