Mauritanian judge sentences man to 12 years’ prison over kidnapping of 3 Spanish aid workers
By APWednesday, July 21, 2010
Mauritania: 12 years for kidnapper of aid workers
NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — A Mauritanian judge has sentenced a man to 12 years in prison over the 2009 kidnapping of three Spanish aid workers.
The judge also ordered fines from Malian citizen Omar Sid’Ahmed Ould Hamma and another man who was ruled an accomplice. The judge acquitted four other suspects.
Three Spanish volunteer aid workers were kidnapped Nov. 29 while delivering relief material to poor villages in Mauritania.
Al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for that kidnapping and for another seizure of an Italian couple in December.
The West African nation has suffered low-level violence for more than a year that its government has blamed on terror cells linked to al-Qaida, known as al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb.
