Word: oufkir
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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TIME has learned that Ben Barka was indeed killed by three high Moroccan officials in an act of loyalty to King Hassan; one of them was former Interior Minister Mohammed Oufkir, who died in 1972; the other two were Moroccan agents, one of whom still holds an important position in the Rabat government; the other is reportedly still a Moroccan intelligence official. According to one of TIME'S sources, Ben Barka's body was interred in the garden of a villa at Fontenay-le-Vicomte, a Paris suburb; 16 days later, for fear that inquisitive French police might...
...Oufkir's error this time, said Hassan, had been "to think he could commit the perfect crime." The plot was later described to the King by two of the captured airmen. One of the pilots, Lieut. Colonel Mohammed Amekrane-who suffers from an incurable kidney ailment-disclosed the details after Hassan coldly reminded him that if military justice did not finish him off, his illness would. As Hassan related it, the plan called for the plane to be shot down at sea "so as to leave no trace." With the deaths of the King, three of his children...
...when Oufkir saw the King's Boeing 727 land safely on the runway, he apparently lost his nerve. "It's not possible," Hassan quoted him as saying. "It must be another airplane." Without waiting to see the King, Oufkir drove to army headquarters. "From that moment," said Hassan, "I began to wonder what was going...
...until later that evening did Hassan feel certain of Oufkir's guilt. By that time, both Amekrane and another pilot, Major Kouera el Ouafi, were being questioned, a fact known by Oufkir. At 11 p.m., Hassan summoned Oufkir to his palace at Skhirat. Oufkir delayed, but after two more phone calls from the King, he arrived around midnight. The royal family was waiting; in a fury Hassan's mother grabbed Oufkir. "Listen, I've had enough of this army that has frightened me twice already," she said. Oufkir moved on into the children's room, nervously...
...right, I understand," said Oufkir. "I know what's left for me to do." With that, according to Hassan, Oufkir pulled his revolver to shoot himself. Others tried to stop him; some wild shots hit the ceiling. "The last shot was fatal," said Hassan-though he may not have told the whole story. Paris' Le Nouvel Observateur reported that those who saw Oufkir's body the next morning said that one bullet had hit him in the stomach, another near the lung, a third in the right arm, and a fourth in the back of his neck...