Trio sentenced to death for beheading backpackers in ISIS-inspired slayings

Three jihadists were sentenced to death in Morocco for butchering two female Scandinavian backpackers in an ISIS-inspired execution.

Ringleader Abdessamad Ejjoud, Younes Ouaziyad and Rachid Afatti were convicted of terror charges Thursday in the trial over the grisly slaughterings back in December.

Maren Ueland, 28, and Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, were fatally wounded Dec. 17 in a tent on a Christmas camping trip near Mount Toubkal, one of Morocco’s highest peaks.

Prosecutors allege that Ejjoud, 25, and Ouaziyad, 27, beheaded the hikers while Afatti, 33, recorded the slayings on his phone. All three men pledged allegiance to ISIS in a video before the murders.

The trio was sentenced along with 20 other accomplices who received jail terms ranging from five to 30 years.

Khalid El Fataoui, the lawyer for Vesterager’s family, said he was “100 percent satisfied” with the verdicts.

The death sentences will be the first in Morocco since 1993 when the country introduced a moratorium on capital punishment, the BBC reported.

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