ISLAMISTS CALL FOR DIALOGUE WITH SALAFIST

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CASABLANCA 000090

SIPDIS

STATE FOR S/CT, NEA/MAG AND INL/AAE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/11/2019
TAGS: PTER PINS KISL PHUM MO
SUBJECT: ISLAMISTS CALL FOR DIALOGUE WITH SALAFIST
PRISONERS IN MOROCCO

REF: A. 08 RABAT 398

B. 07 RABAT 517

C. 08 RABAT 400

Classified By: Consul General Millard for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: In the aftermath of the 2003
Casablanca suicide bombings the government of
Morocco (GOM) detained and prosecuted thousands of
suspected Islamic extremists. The creation of a
concentrated Salafist population in the prisons has
presented the GOM with new challenges including the
bolstering of extremist networks and increased
potential for the radicalization of formerly non-
violent prisoners. A recent conference hosted by an
Islamist human rights organization called for the
GOM to engage in a dialogue with the Salafists
(militant Sunni-extremists) to issue pardons for
those who renounce violence. Royal pardons for
Salafists ceased in 2007 after a released prisoner
blew himself up in a suicide attack. While many
Moroccan experts are skeptical the GOM will engage
in a substantive dialogue or grant pardons to
Salafist prisoners, we believe there have been quiet
direct contacts in the prisons for years. Post
believes the GOM needs to ensure that the prisons
are not a place that encourages terrorist planning
and recruiting and to this end has requested
assistance from a number of USG programs, including
Section 1207 and Middle East Partnership Initiative
(MEPI) funds. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) The Forum of Dignity for Human Rights (Al
Karama) an Islamist association hosted a one-day
conference at the end of April that brought together
religious experts and academics from Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and Morocco to discuss the
Arab state's approach to reconciliation and dialogue
with imprisoned Salafist radicals. The conference
was organized by Mustapha Ramid, parliamentary
caucus leader of the Islamist Party of Justice and
Development (PJD),and financed by the Dutch branch
of the Pax Christi International organization. The
GOM was represented by two officials from the
Ministry of Justice who observed but did not
participate in the proceedings.

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Calls for Reconciliation:
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3. (SBU) Throughout the day-long conference, former
detainees and panelists called upon the GOM to
engage in a dialogue with the Jihadist prisoners and
to learn from the examples of reconciliation in
Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Mustafa Ramid, who has
served as the defense lawyer for high-profile
imprisoned Salafist Sheikhs, argued that the GOM has
unjustly imprisoned hundreds of innocents in its
zeal to stop a small violent minority. Ramid
divided the estimated 1,300 Salafist prisoners
sentenced after the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca
into three groups. The first group is by far the
smallest and consists of Jihadists that believe in
violence as means to achieve their goals. This
minority are the ones responsible for the bombings
and attempted attacks in Morocco. The second group
doesn't believe in democracy or the legitimacy of
the Moroccan government for ideological reasons but
is opposed to enforcing their will through violence.
This group, Ramid argued, consists of Salafist
ideologues which whom the government should actively
engage in a dialogue. Finally, there are the
majority of people who are not interested in
politics and do not believe in violence and have
unjustly been caught in the GOM's security sweeps.
According to Ramid, these are simple, conservative,
and religious people. They grow their beards long,
wear traditional dress, and strictly follow the
edicts of Islam. They are often not well-educated
and not predisposed to modern life.


4. (C) In a later conversation with poloff, Abdelali
Hattimi, the vice-president of Al Karama, elaborated
on Ramid's point by arguing that the overwhelming
majority of Islamist prisoners belong to the third
category and do not deserve the heavy sentences they
received. He also implied that the second group,
which he said consists of Salafist theologians such
as Abdelwahab Rafiki (aka Abu Hafs),Hassan Kettani

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(aka Abu Osama) are not a danger and have been
unjustly imprisoned for their ideas. (NOTE: Kettani
and Rafiki (ref A) are firebrand Salafist ideologues
who stirred up youth in their respective towns and
whose followers allegedly participated in the May
2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca. They were both
arrested prior to the Casablanca bombings and
subsequently sentenced to 20 and 30 years in prison
respectively. END NOTE)

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To Pardon or Not to Pardn:
--------------


5. (C) Royal padons, which are given out to
commemorate notableevents and religious holidays,
substitute for a arole system in Morocco. Reports
indicate that aproximately 315 Salafists were
pardoned in 2005 nd at least another 55 in 2006
(Ref B). The parons came to a halt when Abdelffah
Raidi, a prisoer pardoned in the 2005 amnesty, blew
himself upin March of 2007 at an internet cafe in a
poor ditrict of Casablanca. The GOM does not
publish te names of those pardoned but Annassir,
the non-overnmental organization assisting the
families f Islamist prisoners, claimed there have
been nopardons of extremists or Salafists in the
last tw years.


6. (C) The leadership of Al Karama met ast summer
with Ahmed Herzenni, the President ofMorocco's
Advisory Council on Human Rights (CCDH to discuss
the possibility of additional pardon. According to
Hattimi, Herzenni said he had recived more than 170
letters from Islamist prisones proclaiming their
innocence, asking for a pardn, and affirming their
support for the King. Hezenni reportedly urged Al
Karama to take the cas to the public to pressure
the government to resue the pardons.

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Reconcliation Unlikely:
--------------


7. SBU) During the conference Mohammed Darif, an
exert on Moroccan Islamic movements, affirmed the
nlikelihood of a rapprochement between the
government and the Islamists. Darif argued that the
coditions for a dialogue between the Salafist
detanees and the Moroccan state, following the
modelof Egypt or Saudi Arabia, do not exist at
presen. He claimed that since the Salafist
prisoners belong to small cells and don't speak with
a unifid voice the GOM is unlikely to engage with
them. He also noted there does not seem to be the
incination either from the government or the
prisonrs to compromise their position. The press
has reported, and Hattimi confirmed, that officials
frm the MOI have met with the Salafist leaders
thogh these discussions appear to have focused on
cnditions in prison rather than reconciliation.

. (C) Sheikhs such as Abu Hafs, Kettani, Mohammed
El Fizazi, and others have led protests and hunger
strikes throughout the years to win concessions,
which have allowed the Salifists to pray and liv
together with relative autonomy in the prisons.(Ref
C) A hunger strike in September of 2007 that began
in Sale spread to other prisons in the contry and
involved more than 400 prisoners before it was
resolved in favor of the prisoners. The Moroccan
press has published calls by the Salafists for
dialogue with the government. However, despite a
public letter published in 2007 in which Abu Hafs
recanted the use of violence, none of the Sheikhs
has been willing to publicly ask for a pardon from
the King. This is unacceptable to them, according
to Hattimi, since they view this as a concession of
wrongdoing.

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The Widow of Al Qaida:
--------------


9. (SBU) During the discussion period of the forum,
a woman dressed in a niqab publicly excoriated the
Moroccan and U.S. government for their crimes
against Islam and her family. At the end of the
day, she approached poloff and asked him to open an
investigation into the killing of her husband and

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son "by the CIA" and asked that the bodies be
returned to Morocco. Poloff replied that he was not
aware of what she was referring to and asked for the
names of her child and husband. Poloff later
learned that the woman was Fatiha Hassani, popularly
known in the media as the "widow of Al Qaida" and
who recently appeared on the cover of a weekly
Moroccan magazine MarocHebdo. Her husband was Karim
El Mejatti, a Moroccan member of Al Qaida who was
believed to have been responsible in part for the
Casablanca bombings in 2003 and the Madrid bombings
in 2004. Mejatti was killed in Saudi Arabia by
security forces in 2005 along with his son Adam.
Hassani and her other son Elias were allegedly taken
into custody by the Saudis and held in detention for
three months in 2003 before being transferred to
Morocco and held for an additional nine months. A
Moroccan newspaper erroneously reported the
encounter with poloff as Hassani petitioning the new
U.S. Ambassador about her case.


10. (C) COMMENT: Mostly from press accounts, we know
the GOM has maintained a dialogue with prisoners for
years, including with intellectual architects such
as Abu Hafs and Kettani. There have been periodic
rumors that a deal might be cut to permit their
release and such accommodations are a key element of
the Moroccan way of government. Following the
ultimately failed breakout last year of Salafist
prisoners (all were killed or recaptured, the last
one returned from Algeria,) the prison regime was
toughened significantly, under a former Hassan II-
era national police chief. That no deal has so far
emerged suggests the two Salafist Sheikhs be
unrepentant and may continue to pose a very real
threat by privately providing the justification and
inspiration for violent jihad, at the same time as
they are publicly claiming they have reformed.


11. (C) Comment continued: It is unclear what Ramid
and others who are part of the legal Islamic
political movement are seeking by downplaying the
danger of the Salafist Sheikhs. Ultimately,
however, the GOM needs to ensure the prisons are not
a place that encourages terrorist networking,
planning, and even recruiting. Indeed Embassy Rabat
has requested prison-related assistance from a
number of programs, including under Section 1207 and
the Middle East Partnership Initiative, to support
and expand such an effort. Engaging the
progenitors of violent jihad in the hopes of
persuading them of the error of their ways, while of
uncertain prospect, is a part of effort in which the
Moroccans are particularly experienced.


12. (C) This message was coordinated with Embassy
Rabat.
MILLARD