Three arrested over Morocco bombs

The Casablanca attacks rocked the normally peaceful kingdom

Police in Morocco have captured three suspects over last year's Casablanca suicide bomb attacks in an overnight raid on a house in the city.

One is suspected of planning the five co-ordinated attacks on 16 May, the state news agency MAP reports.

Shooting erupted during the arrests and the three were wounded, one critically. A further two suspects escaped.

About 45 people - 12 of them bombers - were killed in the suicide attacks, widely blamed on Islamic militants.

'Bomb diagram'

Security officials quoted by MAP named the most senior suspect as 27-year-old Abdelmalek Bouzgarene.

He was captured at the house in the Hay Hassani district, on the city's southern outskirts, along with Mohamed el Jarmouni, 27, and Mourad el Mnaouar, 24.

The agency said one suspect - it did not specify which of the three - had received a bullet in the head and was in a critical condition.

Also found at the scene were a bomb diagram, counterfeit money, religious books and CDs, police armbands and badges, two passports and five identity cards belonging to other people, MAP reports.

Hundreds of people have been arrested in the aftermath of the bombings and several have already been convicted and sentenced to death.

Last month, French police arrested 13 people near Paris on suspicion of links to the attacks in Morocco.