Trial opens in Moroccan teen gang rape case

The trial of 12 men accused of kidnapping and gang raping a Moroccan teenager in her village last August opened on Tuesday in the central town of Beni Mellal.

Lawyer Ibrahim Hachane, who said his client, the plaintiff, was not in court, told AFP that the case was adjourned to 25 June at the request of both sides.

The accused, aged between 19 and 29, are being tried on several charges including human trafficking, rape, kidnapping and forming an organised gang.

Conviction on a trafficking charge can carry a 30-year prison sentence in Morocco.

Another suspect is to be tried separately behind closed doors on 11 June as he was a minor at the time of the alleged offences, Hachane said.

He said the accused had confessed to police but most of them had retracted before a magistrate.

In a video posted online, Khadija Okkarou said members of a "dangerous gang" had kidnapped and held her prisoner for two months, raping and torturing her.

She showed horrific scars allegedly from cigarette burns and tattoos carved into parts of her body.

The case has stirred outrage in Morocco, where an official report has found that more than 90 percent of Moroccan victims of violence had failed to file a complaint.

Shortly after Okkarou's story became public, Morocco's government introduced a law protecting women from "acts considered forms of harassment, aggression, sexual exploitation or ill treatment".