Word: barka
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...year reign. The new King also set up a commission to provide $4 million in compensation to victims of political torture in what Mohammed VI calls "moral recognition toward all of these people." He green-lighted the return of exiles, like the family of Mehdi Ben Barka, a friend turned opponent of his father's allegedly murdered by agents in Paris. Last year Mohammed VI sent a secret emissary to France to arrange the return of Morocco's most famous political refugee, Abraham Serfaty, a Marxist who spent 17 years in prison before being deported in 1991. Today Serfaty lives...
Word that Ben Barka had been kidnaped was flashed to Rabat by Ahmed Dlimi, Oufkir's deputy for intelligence operations, who had surreptitiously entered France in order to supervise the first stage of "Operation Ben Barka." Oufkir immediately went to France; his cover story for leaving Rabat was that he intended to visit Switzerland, where his children were in school...
...second night after his capture, Ben Barka was confronted in a bedroom of the villa by Interior Minister Oufkir and by two other Moroccans. All three carried pistols. "Who gave you the authorization for what you are doing?" Ben Barka demanded angrily. Replied Oufkir: "We are here in the name of our master and for the sake of Morocco." For several minutes, the three Moroccans carried on a loud argument with their prisoner. Then one of them said: "Let's finish this comedy. You were sentenced to death in Morocco. Now you're going...
...months after Ben Barka's disappearance, French police in the course of their investigation searched the villa's garden. Of course, they did not find the body, which by then was lying in its grave on the Il de la Grande Jatte...
Violent Deaths. Thirteen people were eventually charged with crimes related to the Ben Barka case, but few actually stood trial. Oufkir and an intelligence agent code named "Chtouki" (real name: Mohammed Miloued) refused to return to France. They were convicted in absentia of illegal arrest and confinement and given life sentences. Dlimi did stand trial and was acquitted. Two of the French undercover agents got prison terms for "illegally detaining" him. Other people involved in the murder try to live in the shadows. Since Ben Barka's death, at least 37 people connected with the case have disappeared; some...