A WOMAN holidaymaker has died after a prisoner grabbed the steering wheel of a police car which then careered into two minibuses packed with tourists in Morocco.
Judith Jamieson, from Clifton, York, was sitting at the front of the second minibus when it was hit head-on by the police car.
The collision left seven dead, according to the chief executive of the holiday company running the trip.
The party of 16 Britons were on a walking tour of the north African country with Rambler's Holidays, based in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, when the crash happened on one of the main roads out of Marrakesh.
They were 15 minutes into a sightseeing trip on their sixth day in the country, heading to Beni Mallal, following the Atlas Mountains, when the tragedy occurred.
Rambler's Holidays' chief executive, Stuart Alderman, said: ''The buses were travelling at 80km an hour and a people carrier was travelling in the opposite direction carrying police and prisoners.
''It transpires that one of the prisoners grabbed the steering wheel, which caused it to go across the road and hit the first bus on the side, then the second one almost head-on.
''Some of the injured were in the first minibus, but Judith Jamieson was in the front of the second bus.
"The Moroccan driver of the second bus is in a coma and he took most of the impact.
"Unfortunately, Miss Jamieson, who was travelling on her own, was killed," Mr Alderman said.
Six people in the police car were also killed, but it was not clear how many were police and how many were prisoners, he said.
The injured, some with broken bones and others with cuts and bruises, were taken to the Clinic Ibn Rochd, in Marrakesh, for treatment.
Miss Jamieson is thought to have family in the Newcastle area.
Six of the tourists in the crash returned to Britain yesterday. Four other crash victims, who were staying in a hotel in Marrakesh, were expected to return to Britain some time today.
The four were still being treated in hospital, but the Moroccan authorities said it was expected they would be released by tomorrow
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