Moroccan court sentences drug kingpin to death

RABAT Jan 13 (Reuters) - A Moroccan court has sentenced the head of a major drug gang to death after he was found guilty of manslaughter and narcotics trafficking in a high profile case that also saw security officials convicted of their involvement.

The official MAP news agency said Casablanca's appeal court handed down the death sentence to Najib Zaimi late on Thursday.

The death penalty has not been carried out since 1992 in Morocco, which ranks as the biggest supplier of cannabis to Europe. In October, a court near Rabat sentenced to death the chief plotter of an April Marrakesh bomb attack that killed 17.

Authorities said in 2010 they had dismantled an international drug trafficking ring and discovered 7.5 tonnes of cannabis hidden at a farm near Nador owned by Zaimi, who has denied any wrongdoing.

They said the network had a string of officials on its payroll who helped it bypass police and customs checks, allowing it to transport drugs from Nador to Spain and the Netherlands.

Nador is located in the Rif region of northern Morocco where several thousand people still earn a living from cannabis cultivation despite efforts by authorities to curb the activity.

The prosecution had sought the death sentence for the ring leader and other suspects for their involvement in torturing to death a relative of Zaimi suspected of stealing money from him.

Zaimi has the right to appeal his sentence but it was not clear whether his lawyers had moved to do this.

His right-hand man, Hicham Chouhou, was sentenced to life imprisonment while Mohamed Jalmad, the former head of police in Nador, was sentenced to three years in jail.

MAP said Zaimi's father was given 20 years in jail, while two other relatives were also sentenced to prison.

It did not detail any sentences given to 30 other suspects also charged in the case. These included 13 members of the paramilitary police and auxiliary forces, a member of military intelligence, an interior ministry official as well as the head of a banking branch and a local reporter. (Reporting By Souhail Karam; Editing by Sophie Hares)