NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — A court in Mauritania sentenced three alleged members of an al-Qaida offshoot to death Tuesday for the 2007 murder of four French tourists.
The three — who pleaded not guilty but have also claimed they are militants in a holy war — were convicted of gunning down the tourists, who had stopped to picnic on the side of a highway near the town of Aleg, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of the West African country's capital of Nouakchott.
Judge Khayi Ould Mohamed read out the sentence against Sidi Ould Sidna, Maarouf Ould Haiba and Mohamed Ould Chabarneau at the criminal court in Nouakchott. The men, who have claimed to be members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a North Africa offshoot of al-Qaida, can appeal.
In all, 21 people went on trial Sunday on terrorism charges, including some accused of being accomplices in the murder of the tourists.
Earlier in the day, when asked if they had anything to say before the deliberations, the defendants had shouted "God is great!" Link
